What type of shelving is best?

kinger8938

kinger8938

kinger8938

Soldato
Joined
23 Mar 2011
Posts
11,332
So never put anything like this up and having been at our home for a while now i think we may benefit from some shelving in the kitchen and we have an alcove in little ones nursery that we would like to shelve to put bits and bobs up! Storage in new builds is very limited!!

So what are the best options? May seem like a daft question but fairly new to diy! I like the look of floating shelves but see reports of them sagging and not sitting right etc?

Or are bracket shelves the best?

Any tips welcome for a n00bie!
 
Floating shelves are fine as long as they are attached to a solid wall. Plaster board and you'll have trouble getting a strong fixing.
 
Get spring toggle fixings and then just hit Ikea for some options.

Floating will be okay if youre just putting light items on them, but ideally you want something well supported.
 
I put a 5-hook coat rail up in our under-stairs cupboard that it effectively made of stud walls and there is quite a bit of weight on it (10kg+), I used gripit wall plugs, they're very strong and designed for plasterboard. You'll need probably a 20mm hole for each plug and from memory you'll need a 6mm screws but check this.
These ones are blue but I used the brown ones:

http://www.screwfix.com/p/gripit-blue-plasterboard-fixings-25-x-20mm-8-pack/7518J?kpid=7518J&cm_mmc=Google-_-Product%20Listing%20Ads-_-Sales%20Tracking-_-sales%20tracking%20url&gclid=Cj0KEQjw9vi-BRCx1_GZgN7N4voBEiQAaACKVoiLj-HdWD4RR1FZixmhtCKEIFjgl6IO8CXZbwcEsowaAjWh8P8HAQ
 
Last edited:
LiE said:
Floating shelves are fine as long as they are attached to a solid wall. Plaster board and you'll have trouble getting a strong fixing.
Click to expand...

Not really. More of it depends on how the floating part attaches to the frame. You can secure the frame as securely as you like to a wall but if the shelf doesn't fit tightly onto the frame you'll end up with it sagging fairly quickly/instantly. It'll all depend on the shelf manufacturer unfortunately. Cheap ones likely being worse than more premium ones.

No idea what the ikea ones are like however, but on that subject ikea do some nice metal framed ones (metal ends that secure to the wall and the piece of wood slots inside) that may be a good option.
 
Being an alcove should help, you could base it on battens attached around three walls. It really depends on the loading you want and how handy you are. You could make a hollow shelf to hide the battens, not as hard as it might sound.

If you want to really load it, you could build up from the floor and then attach to wall. There are many ways to do this, but the correct response will depend on how much load, what you'll tolerate looks wise and what you're fixing to.
 
Yeah, a shelf based off three battons attached to the studs (ideally) would support pretty much anything you're likely to want to put on it. If you then use two pieces of ply as top and base and then just slot a piece of wood in to the front (ideally routed so the ply sits on the wood but flush with the front. Then add a bit of wood filler, sand and paint and you'll get something you could probably sit on. That definitely won't sag.

The only issue would be finding a router/someone with a router to cut the grooves in the wood to be used as the front. The rest would just involve basic tools (screwdriver/ wood drill bits, saw, sandpaper and paintbrush).
 
Last edited:
That does sound good but maybe a bit in depth for me right now, but i think making one to fit the whole alcobe is a good idea

May try basic floating ones in the nursery as its only really to hold baby things like teddies and stuff so should need to carry too much weight, in the kitchen may do 2 or 3 with brackets just need to make sure i use the right fixings as its all hollow where we want them
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom