The Nursery - $10 Floating Shelves

I showed you our reading nook in the nursery already. Now I want to show you how we made the floating shelves you see on the wall.

It started with (what else) some inspiration. I found the idea for the shelves here and the idea for a book display here. But let's be honest, we didn't construct these shelves quite like she did. We got the materials from Lowe's on one of our weekend trips. Our purchases included two 1x4s and one 2x4. Total cost? Almost $10 exactly, which is just like what the inspiration video said it would be.

Once we got the lumber home we cut them all in half (to create two shelves). We arranged them similarly to the inspiration shelf. Instead of me trying to explain this, I'll show you a diagram instead.

Diagram found here.

We just used some very long nails and ensured the shelves would be sturdy enough for a few books. Simple as that! After they were both assembled it was time to paint. We used the same white paint as the trim in the nursery. Again, very simple!

Here Joe demonstrates the size of the shelf in our dining room. At this point in the project it was still very much a secret that I was even pregnant. We couldn't give anything away until we were ready to announce the big news. In the meantime we just gave each other a pat on the back and admired our handy work, quietly.

This shows you the little lip in front to hold the books. You might notice we arranged our 3 pieces of wood a bit differently than the diagram. We didn't feel we needed quite as much depth to the shelf so this is how we arranged our the three pieces.

And here are our floating shelves once we got them on the wall in the nursery. We used some books to approximate on the best distance between the shelves. We also wanted them a bit low for easy access. (Sidenote: these pictures are driving me nuts today. The yellow you see below is really not the yellow we see on the walls. I wish these pictures didn't show the color so brightly. I am just not a good photographer to capture these colors correctly.)

Once again, here is our finished product in our reading nook. I'm so happy with how this project turned out! As you can see we've already filled the shelves with great books to read our little one. We've got some true classics up there including a few Dr. Seuss books.