Easy DIY FLOATING SHELVES No bracket _ DIY CREATORS.

Loading shelves can be a great way to enhance and freshen up your space and whether you're looking to add some change to your bedroom or you're just looking to give your bathroom a quick facelift they can go a long way but you don't have to stop there maybe you also want a solution to keep your gear organized. Now what make this appealing is for less than ten dollars you can create all three shelves without any hardware. Stay tuned and I'm gonna show you exactly how it's made. And before we continue here's a list of things that you'll need to build your shelves. You'll need one 2 inch by 8 inch by 8 foot lumber you'll also need a 36 inch oak dowel and in many hardware store you can have the lumber cut to size but for those who have tools all you need is a circular saw a drill a sander and a half inch bit. Now I want to cut this lumber down into three equal parts but being that I have a chipped corner I'm gonna mark and then remove that first. The final length of each board will be just shy of 31 inches and after marking the area I'm gonna now add a piece of support under the bottom to catch the wood after it's cut. I also want to check the depth of my blade so I don't go all the way through the support so I'm gonna lift the saw up a bit just so it barely touches the support and using a speed square is a quick and simple way to keep the saw straight as you're ripping through the lumber. Now repeat the same step two more times and that'll get you three shelves. Next I'm using a three foot section of half inch dowels and what I'm going to do is mark that to four inches and you should end up with nine pieces. It's going to be three of these per shelf. Now the next thing we want to do is mark three locations for the dowels. I'm going to mark the very middle and then two inches from the outside on both sides. Next you want to find the center point of each line and put a mark. Now I'm going to take a half inch bit and then I'm going to put tape around it and this is going to be setting the depth of the dowel. You can use a phillips screwdriver or an awl to mark the point and this would help the bit to stay focused and not wander off. Now just repeat the same step for all nine holes and while this is clamped let's go ahead and sand it down and clean up this area. Now I do feel like it would be easier to drill the hole first then cut the wood because this way I know everything will be lined up perfectly. I'm going to use the guide that came with the circular saw and set it to make an inch and a half cut then lock it in place. And of course if you have a table saw this would be a much easier process to tackle and you can go ahead and rip that on your table saw as well. And with this demonstration I'm showing with the circular saw I just want to be sure to hold on with the circular saw with two hands if need be to try and control the saw so it doesn't wander off. Now it will be easy to get these mixed up so what we want to do is mark each one of them and also put marking points so we know which side go where and which piece go at which piece. I used a half inch bit and also half inch dowels. Now this make it difficult for the dowels to slide in and out of the holes so that's fine for the back part of the shelf and we want to hammer that in but for the front side of the shelf I'm going to mark these and then sand down this section here. We need the extended part of the dowel to slide in and out of the shelves fairly easy. And the best way for me to sand this down was to place one side in the chuck of my drill and then I'll take sandpaper and hold it alongside of the dowel. Now you don't want to overdo it you just want to make sure that the dowels slide in and out of the hole easily. Now just repeat the same process over and over until all of them is done. Now you can move on to sanding down all the shelves and you can also round over the ends using a router or you can use the sander. So right now I'm going to line up the pieces, I'm going to drop the dowel pins inside of them and I'm going to hammer those down and we want to lock them in place at this point. You can use wood glue but I think they're tight enough that we don't really need it. And as you can see here the pins slide in and out of the shelf just fine and that's really what I was going for. So just repeat the same steps for the remaining shelves. The next thing I want to do is to lock the shelf into place so what I'm going to do is install a screw right through the dowel and into the wood. We do want this to be tight so put a clamp at this area here, pre-drill and countersink the screw. And although you could add one at each dowel section I believe one in the middle would be just fine. So to prep the shelf to take the stain I'm going to use one coat of Minwax pre-stain conditioner. For the viewers that aren't really familiar with the pre-stain conditioner what this does is to help avoid any blotchiness from your stain. And after the conditioner dries I'm going lightly sand it down and the next step will be adding the stain. Now there is a few ways to apply stain. My favorite technique is the wipe on technique where you just apply it and then you remove it with a rack. And I also like to use the Minwax gel stain. The next step to finishing the shelf is putting on a top coat and I'm going to be using a spray on polyurethane. Now I usually add two to three layers of top coat and sand lightly between each one of them. And when it comes to the polyurethane you can use the brush on version, the wipe on version or you can just spray. Now I do prefer to use a spray for a project like this because it's less mess and you don't have to worry about a whole lot of cleanup. The first step to mounting the shelves we want to add a few holes in the back bracket and to do so you want to level that then find the stud in the wall. Next make a mark on the back bracket and on the wall. If you don't have a stud finder you could use a screw in wall anchor such as these which is rated for 50 pounds each. And to speed up the process we're going to transfer the marking over to the other two pieces of wood and we're going to put some cross marks on those and drill a hole there. Now I just eyeball this section here but all you need to do is drill about half inch in because we want the screw to be able to go through the wood and into the wall but not interfere with the shelf itself. Now you're going to place the over the mark that you put on the wall and screw into the stud and again if you didn't have a stud finder you'll be screwing these into a wall anchor. Now align the shelves with the dowel pin and slide the shelf into place. Repeat the same process for the remaining shelves and add the safety screw. You could also use a piece of scrap wood to help you space the shelves properly.