Classic Floating Shelves

A floating shelf is a solid board that mounts with no visible support. The back of the shelf is routed for a hidden steel bracket: the bracket screws into your wall studs, the shelf slides over it, and all you see is wood. Ours are solid oak and mahogany, built in Brooklyn, in thin (7/8 inch) and thick (1 1/2 inch) profiles from 6 to 84 inches long.

You can, and plenty of people do. You will need lumber, a router or drill press for the bracket channel, a saw, sandpaper, finish, and a hidden bracket kit, plus a level and a stud finder for the install. The two spots that decide the result are routing the bracket channel straight and mounting the bracket dead level. If the tooling is the obstacle, our shelves arrive routed, finished, and ready to mount in about ten minutes.

Three steps. Find your wall studs and mark them. Screw the steel bracket into the studs, checking it with a level before the final tightening. Slide the shelf over the bracket until it sits flush against the wall. Every shelf ships with its bracket, screws, and instructions, and most installs take about ten minutes with a drill, a level, and a stud finder.

The support is inside the shelf. A steel bracket mounts to the wall studs, and the board has channels drilled into its back that slide over the bracket's rods. Once the shelf is on, the bracket is completely enclosed in wood, which is why the shelf appears to float. Installed into studs, our thick shelves hold roughly 45 to 50 pounds per stud.

It depends on the shelf's thickness and how many studs it crosses. As a guide, our thick 1 1/2 inch shelves hold roughly 45 to 50 pounds per wall stud when mounted into studs, and a long shelf crossing three or four studs holds proportionally more. Thin 7/8 inch shelves suit lighter display loads. Every product page lists its own rating, and the heavy duty collection gathers the strongest builds, including exposed L brackets rated around 100 pounds each.