How To Build Floating Bookshelves (Simple and Easy DIY)
Learn to build a floating shelf for books with this simple DIY tutorial! We installed these floating bookshelves in our reading nook, but you could use this woodworking tutorial to create built-in shelves for your closets, dining room, or any other small spaces in your home.
Thank you to DAP for sponsoring this tutorial on how to build floating bookshelves! All opinions are entirely my own. This post also contains affiliate links, but nothing that I wouldn’t recommend wholeheartedly. Read my full disclosure here.
The dining room renovation is coming along. My favorite part of the whole design of the room was converting the old closet into a reading nook.
The idea dawned on me when I was staring at the construction chaos during the demo phase because I had no idea what to do with the random closet, which isn’t really needed in its traditional sense in a dining room.
We decided to bring in the edges of the drywall on both sides of the closet about 12″, mostly because I wanted to be able to put our piano in the dining room and we didn’t have enough room on the wall. With the corners brought in on each side of the closet, we gained just enough wall space for the piano. But we also got these little nooks that are just perfect for floating book shelves.
How To Build Floating Bookshelves: Step-by-Step Instructions
Supplies & tools you’ll need
We opted for project panels for the wood on these shelves to keep costs down. These are affordable pieces of pine glued together into small workable sheets. We use these often for our small woodworking projects.
Step 1. Cut wood
Start by cutting all of the wood down to size. For each shelf, you’ll need a top piece, a front piece, and ledger boards for the side walls.
If you want to cover the bottom of the shelf, you could also cut out 1/4″ thick panels. We opted to leave the bottom of our shelves open.
What type of wood did we use?
As we said before, we decided to use premade stain-grade project panels. The reason for this is they are incredibly cheap and save time and money by having smaller pieces of pine joined together.
What size are the bookshelves?
For our floating bookshelves, we built them to fit perfectly in the spaces on the sides of our reading nook (which is a former closer) going from wall to wall. This floating bookshelf design is perfect if you’re arranging your shelves inside a closet or another area where you can position the shelf to hit walls on both sides for the ledger boards.
The dimensions will vary based on where you are installing your shelves, but our shelves are approximately 24″ wide, 12″ deep, and 2 1/2″ tall (front piece).
Cut list (will vary based on your shelf size of course):
- Top piece: 24″ x 12″ (Qty 1 for each shelf)
- Front piece: 24″ x 2 1/2″ (Qty 1)
- Ledger sides: 11 1/4″ x 1 1/2″ (Qty 2)
Step 2. Cut miter edge for the front board
This step is optional, but we wanted a nice joint on the front of the shelves, so we decided to miter the corners together so you don’t see the edge of a piece of wood. To do this, we changed the angle of the circular saw to 45 degrees.
If you wanted to simplify this, you could also do a butt joint with the front piece or even use pocket holes with a Kreg jig here. The only downside of this is that you would be able to see the edge from the top of the shelf. Totally up to you!
Step 3. Assemble shelf
When assembling with the finish nailer and wood glue, Logan was sure to get the mitered cut as tight as possible. You want to limit the amount of wood filler used later.
The next thing he took into account was he was going to scribe cut these shelves to fit in the nook. So he made sure to leave some stock on the sides to trim each shelf.
You can see in the picture below that the ledgers on the sides were kept back from the edge about 1/4″.
Step 4. Fill nail holes
Apply Plastic Wood X wood filler with a putty knife to fill in any gaps and nail holes. Let dry thoroughly.
One thing that I love about this wood filler is that it turns from pink to natural wood color when it dries so you know when it is ready to sand!
Step 5. Sand
Use an orbital sander to sand the entire shelf structure with 80-grit, then 120-grit, and finally 220-grit sandpaper. Since books will be sliding in and out on the floating shelves, you want them to be super smooth for the end result.
Step 6. Stain & seal
I wanted a neutral wood tone for the shelves with a really light stain color. Even with a light wood stain color (like these ones), you can sometimes get yellowing and or even orange tones with wood. To avoid this, we tried a new method of lightening the wood before staining it by applying a first coat of white wood stain.
We used one coat of Simply White wood stain and then followed that up with a coat of Early American. The combination of stains on the pine wood was a great light wood color that I love.
Before deciding on this exact method I played around a lot with different stain colors & white stain vs white wash (with watered-down white paint) on scrap wood pieces. I also tried applying the white stain and white wash before and after the stain color.
After the stain has fully dried, seal the wood shelves. We used a few coats of spray lacquer.
Step 7. Hang on wall
We used painter’s tape to visualize the shelf placement a little better before hanging the shelves on the wall.
We found wall studs to anchor our shelves to and drilled pilot holes on the ledger side pieces to hang on the wall.
Because walls are never perfectly straight, we opted to scribe cut our shelves so they would have a nice tight fit in the nook. To learn more about the process of scribe cutting, check out this article. It has a great explanation.
After drilling pilot holes, we used a countersink bit to give the screw head a place to hide a bit so it would be a cleaner look. Then we added 2 1/2″ construction screws to attach the ledger boards to the walls.
Step 8. Caulk
Caulking provides the perfect finishing touches for the bookshelves! Even if you want to scribe cut the shelves to have a tight fit in your space, you may still have a small gap for a number of reasons. This instantly becomes more professional-looking with caulking.
With the light wood color, I wanted something that would blend in well with the wood (rather than stand out, like a bright white). We found this DAP Dynaflex 230 caulk in an almond color that was an almost perfect match to the wood.
To get nice and straight lights, add painter’s tape on both sides of the gap you’ll be caulking. Then you can just remove the tape and you’ll have straight lines. To learn more of our favorite caulking tips, check out these guide.
Open a tube of sealant at a 45-degree angle with a utility knife and load it into a caulking gun. Apply a thin bead of caulk in between the wall and shelf and smooth it. We recommend this smoothing tool.
If you find the caulking sticking to your finger or tool, you can wet it slightly and this always does the trick for us.
Remove the painter’s tape immediately after caulking. Go back and touch up paint with your wall paint color as needed.
Step 9. Fill shelves with books
Now the best part as a book lover… filling the bookshelves with books.
The 12-inch deep shelf was the perfect size to hold all the standard sizes of picture books and chapter books. We were able to fit bigger workbooks and homeschool curriculum here.
To learn how to create that awesome archway, check out this tutorial!
I have another article with all of the details about the closet transformation into a reading nook. So for now I’ll just leave you with a quick sneak peek at the reading nook all styled with books so you can see the floating bookshelves in their full glory!
They are just perfect, aren’t they? I’m so thankful that the reading nook idea dawned on me in the middle of the renovation rubble. Sometimes things turn out even better than you dreamed!
Where can you use this floating shelves tutorial to bring new life to a small space in your home?
