I made some quick DIY floating shelves during a budget bathroom remodel a few years ago. They were quick and easy but were now looking a bit too “rustic.” I had some extra pine board leftover from the kitchen shelves in our cabin – you can check those out here – and I wanted to use the leftover pine to make matching floating shelves in the bathroom. Here is how I made my upgraded DIY pine board floating shelves.
Pine Board:
The pine boards for the floating shelves came from leftover pieces of a large 30 inch x 6ft pine board I bought at Lowes for under $135.
That might sound costly, but I made a lot of things out of one board by cutting it to size on the table saw. You could also use a skill saw.
Here is a view of the full board. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, I could have just used 2x boards, right? Yes, but the only boards I could find were “green” meaning that they had high moisture content and could warp over time as they naturally dried out. This project board was already dried and dimensionally stable.
After cutting pieces for the kitchen shelves, I had just enough left over for two 9 inch deep x 24 inch wide shelves in the bathroom. Woohoo! I was glad to have matching pine shelves throughout the cabin. Here are the cut pieces ready for our DIY Pine Board Floating Shelves along with some other projects.
Floating Shelf Brackets:
I wanted a true floating shelf look in the bathroom, meaning that I didn’t want to see the support brackets at all. The way to achieve this with a solid board is to use hidden steel rod brackets that embed into the shelves. Let me show you.
Here are the hidden brackets I found on Amazon.com.
I only needed 4 pieces but bought an 8 pack of hidden brackets (future projects!) for under $14. That was a pretty awesome price! Plus, they came with connection screws and wall anchors.
Wall Mounting Brackets:
There are two trickier parts to placing these DIY pine board shelves. The first part is placing the hidden bracket on the walls. I used blue tape to visualize where I wanted the shelves and then used a stud finder to determine where the studs were along the shelf width. Here is my visualization tape.
See the small vertical sections of tape? Those mark the location of the wall studs. I wanted these shelves solidly attached to the wall as much as possible and wanted to connect studs. Unfortunately, if I wanted the shelves centered over the toilet, which I did, then the shelves would not be centered on the studs. That’s OK. We can work around it by simply drilling the holes for the brackets rods in the pine boards where they are needed.
So, I needed to get the brackets installed and set. Make sure to use a level when setting the brackets! Nobody wants wonky shelves! Here are the installed brackets with at one screw per bracket set into a stud. I used a drywall anchor the the 2nd screw.
You can see that the brackets are not centered over the toilet, but the shelf board is. Next, let me show you how to drill the holes for those hidden brackets.
Drilling Hidden Bracket Holes in the Pine Board:
This photo shows you how the hidden bracket fits into the pine board.
This is the 2nd tricky part of the DIY pine board shelf install. The holes for the brackets need to be drilled fairly straight and placed so that the shelves are centered on the toilet.
Here are the simple tools I used to drill the holes.
If you have a drill press on-hand, more power to you. But I had to do these holes by hand. I used a drill block I found on Amazon.com for under $8 to start the drill off straight. The bracket rods are 1/2 inch diameter, so I found a 1/2″ diameter drill bit at Home Depot and marked the depth with blue tape. Later, I adjusted the blue tape to account for the thickness of the drill block. So, I held the drill block aligned where I needed it, said a little prayer, and drilled the hole!
Here I am holding the drill block and drilling the hole on the floor of the kitchen. Work with what you got!
Here are my drilled holes. One went wonky. I’m not sure what happened, so I just drilled again until it was straight.
Can you see the notched areas around holes? I chiseled those out so the shelf would sit flush with the face of the wall. I simply used a small chisel set and an hammer. You can see my chisel and pencil outline of the bracket face here.
I did this process for both shelves and then crossed my finger they would fit with the wall-mounted brackets! Here are the unfished pine boards on the wall. Yay! All that careful measuring and leveling paid off.
Pine Board Finishing:
To finish the shelf boards, I took them off the wall, sanded them smooth, and used a pre-stain finish before staining. Then, I applied one coat Early American and two coats American Walnut shown here.
Let the stain fully dry at least 24 hours before applying a protective finish. I used Behr polyurethane in matte that I had leftover from a flooring project.
Once everything was dry, it was time to put the boards back on the wall and celebrate the new DIY pine board floating shelves.
The Reveal – DIY Pine Board Floating Shelves:
Woohoo! Here are the finished floating shelves all decorated and happily in use.
Let’s get a close up in here.
I was really pleased with how they turned out, especially since these were mostly done with leftover materials from other projects.
What do you think? Like the owls? Lol, I don’t know how I got so many owl things…..Anyway, let me know in the comments below if this helped you with your own projects.
