weight of floating shelves

Submitted by mollyb on Wed, 07/23/2014 - 11:24

I'm fairly new to woodworking/building. I am making these floating shelves based on Ana's plans on the blog Young House Love.

http://www.younghouselove.com/2010/04/build-it-with-ana-floating-shelve…

I have the wood cut for two shelves...the longest is about 4.5 feet long and 7.75 inches wide.

My concern is the plywood. It's about 1/2 inch thick and VERY HEAVY. If I screw the frame to the wall connected at the studs, do you think I will be fine? I'm so concerned about the weight for these shelves.

Thanks!

cmcmassage

Fri, 12/26/2014 - 05:18

I see you posted this a while ago but I felt like weighing in on this anyway. As long as your frames that the shelves float on are mounted at the studs (use more than one screw per stud, if you can) and you've mounted the frame at each stud that's within the width of each frame, then you should be okay. If any of your frames don't reach between 2 different studs, you'll mount on part to the stud and then you'll have to find an anchor that will work for you for the other mounting point. But mounting your frame like this is not optimal. For the length and width of your shelves, as long as you mount the frames to each stud within the width of the frame and you aren't trying to do pullups off the shelf or storing full gallons of paint along the whole length, then you should be fine with pretty much anything you put on it.