I estimate I put 25-30 hours into this project between concept, finding the right lumber, developing the techniques involved to get it all mounted straight and finished, and then actually applying those steps. Once we figured out that we wanted floating shelves, here's how I did it:
The lumber:
This is the least deterministic piece of the puzzle. We figured out (and mocked up with some plywood) that we wanted shelves that were about 2" thick, about 8-10" deep and 4 feet long, with the slight overlap as you see in the final result. We debated several types of wood as well but then settled between maple (matches the floors) or cherry (matches the table). Anything in the dark wood family was out for color reasons, and other light hardwoods didn't quite fit the bill (poplar is too green-toned, ash and hickory didn't have the right types of grain and typical embellishments). Of course this is all personal taste. We then looked at possible sources. It's easy enough to buy a cherry or maple board, but most of them are milled to something like 1"x10"x6', which is really only 3/4" thick. Your typical lumber store may not have anything thicker. Since I have a table saw and miter saw, it's no big deal to shave the depth down to spec or cut the board to the length we wanted, but the thickness is not something I wanted to mess with. I floated the idea of gluing two boards together, but Marisa vetoed the resulting grain disruption along all the edges where the glue line would go. I agreed too. I then looked to the internet, and found www.thelumbershack.com. They have a huge, searchable, inventory and I found some candidates, but Marisa said she preferred to see it in person so we committed to finding some specialty stores. That weekend we happened to be visiting her parents in Spokane and we took a quick trip to Windsor Plywood. I didn't really have my hopes up (based on their name, primarily), but they turned out to have the best selection I've ever seen (out of the 3 stores I've been to). We found a great, 9'-long cherry board, had the store chop it in half and brought it home. We then cut it to two 4-foot lengths, keeping the interesting features of the boards.
The mounting approach:
This was the hardest part to conceptualize, and we always had the backup plan of getting corbels and doing a traditional mount. I figured there'd be some ready-made solution somewhere but I couldn't find anything that was a) invisible and b) substantially strong. I went to a hardware store and pored over a catalog to find what I really wanted, which was basically a metal dowel with a screw tip. They actually had them, but after I received them it became quickly apparent they wouldn't be up to the task. The bolt bent under 5-10lbs of weight, and the shelves alone weigh about 20 apiece. I returned the hardware and decided I probably needed to make my own solution from basics I could get at Home Depot. My first attempt was to go with some 1/2"x10" lag bolts, though they had the complication that they have the big hex heads on them and I didn't want to deal with hiding that in the wood anywhere. But, if I cut them off, I have to find another way to drive them into the wall studs. A solution to this is to thread two nuts onto the bolt and use a wrench to turn the one farther from the wall towards the wall. It will then butt up against the other, seizing together and gripping the bolt instead. Unfortunately the lag bolt's unthreaded diameter is too large and those nuts would have to stay, thus forcing me to cut additional diameter into the shelf boards to hide those. Not a huge deal, but annoying. It then occurred to me that I could just use threaded rod instead, be able to remove the nuts AND it has the added benefit that the threads should grab into the shelves a bit and help keep it in place. Some prototyping showed me that 1/2" was the right diameter, anything less would be too flexible under a typical load.
The actual mount:
A lot has to go just right here. For starters, the holes in the board and the wall must line up exactly, and they need to yield a level shelf. To solve this, I cut two 4'x2" strips of plywood (table saw is handy here!) which I then mounted to the wall with screws exactly where the shelf would go, checking that it was level as well. I then used a stud finder to find where the 3 studs in the 4' stretch were. I then drilled 1/8" pilot holes through the plywood, into the drywall, using a drill guide to make sure they were exactly perpendicular. I marked the visible side of each plywood to indicate which shelf they corresponded to. Then I removed them from the wall, placed the marked face of each up against the back of the shelf it belongs to, lined up the corners and attached it with some screws. I then repeated the pilot hole process into the shelf. Without the guide, the holes may not be exactly in the right spots, leading to a shift or tilt in the shelf, or worst case, not all the holes lining up with the wall. Then, I needed help. There's probably some other way to do this alone, but I couldn't come up with an effective way to drill exactly perpendicular with a big speed-bore bit (the guide just shakes around too much to be useful). I used a square to draw lines straight down the face of the board, one lined up with each hole, that I could visually align the bit with. This solved one of the free dimensions, so I had Marisa sit there with the square against the back of the shelf as I drilled with a 1/2" bit, telling me when I was aligned or not. The ideal tool here would be a drill press, but I didn't have one of those. I used a spare threaded rod to make sure the holes were straight and to scrape them out slightly, essentially using the threads like a file. I tried using the guide when drilling into the all with a 7/16", but that didn't work so well. A similar line+sqaure+help process would have been better. Once all the holes were drilled (I went about 5" deep into the studs, the shelves are on an outer wall so they're going into 2x6s; fully into a 2x4 would be perfectly fine as well), it was time to drive the threaded rod into the studs. I did this using the two-nuts trick I mentioned before. Drilling the holes in the stud to be the same size as the core of the threaded rod allows the thread to twist nice and snugly into the wood. Use a hacksaw to cut the rods down to a length that will fit inside the shelf. I had them go most of the way through the shelf (~7 of the 8.5" depth), though I'm not sure that's needed structurally).
The finish:
This was another big unknown when we started. I was fairly certain that a Danish oil finish was the way to go, but we used the leftover foot of board to practice and try techniques on. Step 1 is definitely sanding. I used a powered orbital sander for all the steps. 80 grit got the mill marks and my doodles out of the wood, then 150 smoothed that out, and a final pass with 400 polished everything to a nice glass-like shine. I then found a great trick to clean out all the saw dust and snag any remaining loose splinters, etc: super fine steel wool. It's like $3 for a 12-pack and its texture pulls out and captures all the dust as well as essentially filets off any last loose tidbits. Running it along the edges between faces gives a great tiny-radius softening, just so the edges aren't literally sharp. However, when I applied the Danish oil, we liked the color but were surprised at how much it brought out the stripes (perpendicular to the grain, below right) in the wood. Using the leftovers as the practice was perfect here because it responds exactly like the shelf itself will. We nixed the Danish oil and went with just a buffed paste wax finish (left) instead. We had decided against a urethane-type coat because it's a clearly visible layer instead of just looking like richer wood. The other options provide less protection, but we're not planning on putting anything wet/sticky/etc on the shelves. I repeated the sanding and waxing on the actual shelves, and they came out great! Note: I also used the steel wool to gently smooth down the artfully split edge, which was quite splintery in its original state.
Mounting the shelf:
So now I had a wall full of threaded rods and complementary-drilled, finished shelves. The last step is to simply slide the shelf onto the rods! I knew the rods weren't exactly perpendicular though, so I wasn't expecting an easy step here. Both shelves lined up pretty well, but neither just "slid on". I ended up having to get out a hammer to get the shelves all the way to the wall. To avoid mangling my handiwork, I used a piece of smooth hemlock to cushion the blows from a large hammer. I broke my hemlock cushion into several pieces, but the mission was accomplished: the shelf wiggled on, bit by bit, until it was snugly up against the wall. Great success!
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