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Make and Sell DIY Floating Shelves

11 min read

A quick Google search will find you a ton of tutorials on making DIY projects. Basically anything you dream of making can be made with a little help from an expert in cyberspace. The growth of the internet over the past twenty years has opened us up to an entire world of taking on projects ourselves, without having to pay an outside expert. This has also contributed immensely to individual and corporate development in the last two decades.

The commercial state of the internet is essentially the world’s largest shopping mall: a seemingly infinite platform to buy, sell and make money. And the number of businesses and transactions happening online grows by the day. Thus, in the spirit of ecommerce, Ecwid offers you an avalanche of opportunities to sell your stuff online, whatever your product or service is.

In this post, we will focus on DIY floating shelves and how they might be an interesting addition to your business, or a reason to start one.

You can make a Floating Shelf from improvised materials very quickly. The main thing is to find an original idea. It can be a shelf for flower pots or kitchen utensils made of unpainted wood or covered with paint. When the product is ready, launch an online store and social networks for your handmade brand.

It’s pretty easy to make shelves, but making a floating shelf requires a deeper level of understanding, and that expertise might then be harnessed to make a profit. Are you interested in learning how to make and sell DIY floating shelves? Well then, this post is for you.

Read on to learn how you can make some for yourself and even make it a business.

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Why Get a Floating Shelf?

Looking at an empty wall in your home, or a stack of books on the floor, you may find yourself interested in obtaining a floating shelf. People make or buy floating shelves to have a well-organized garage, and to rid their space of those flimsy old plastic shelves. A floating shelf is also a perfect way to achieve some home decor and storage goals and leaving room for other furniture that has to live on your floor.

Structure of a Floating Shelf

Typically, a floating shelf is made of two parts namely:

  • The brace or frame, which is the internal skeleton.  It must be strong enough to withstand the load you intend to put. There is no shelf if the frame is not strong.
  • The box, which covers the frame. The box can be made of 1x boards or plywood, depending on your requirements.

There are a ton of DIY floating shelves available on the internet. They are quick to build, have visible supports, and have the required durability. These shelves are made such that they do not leave unnecessary visible holes wherever you place them. That is especially true for the wall, which could result in the interior’s loss of style points. They are made with no particularly visible supports and thus require less space to be a smart choice for living room, garage, bathroom, kitchen, or others.

Making Your DIY Floating Shelf

With the floating shelf, you can create a clear view of your space. Use 1″ thicker lumber and some floating shelf brackets. Make holes in the wall to accommodate the steel rods, which will hold the floating wooden shelves.

For a simple DIY floating shelf, you only need some pieces of solid wood, 6mm expansion bolts, 6mm nuts, and a 6mm thread bar. Mark the holes on the walls, and drill holes in them. Then, fit the rods inside the holes, then slide the finished wooden shelves on them.

For DIY wood floating shelves, you can also increase the visual of the interior of your home walls with a simple lumber wood- to make the shelves and shelf frame- and hand these structures a custom finish with water-based polyurethane.

Some easy-to-make floating shelves can serve as DIY floating shelves. You need 2′ x 4′ sanded plywood project panels for these shelves. Ensure they are 1/4″ thick, and get some 1″x2″x8″ pine boards to make the shelves. You can make the shelf frame with pine boards, which will hold the box-like floating shelves on the frame.

Making a DIY floating shelf is not a one-size-fits-all type of situation. There is a variety of building ideas you can consider in the shelf category, including DIY shelves for narrow spaces, or heavy-duty floating shelves for garages and industrial spaces. With an eye for design and the right materials in place, the possibilities are truly endless.

Making and Attaching Floating Shelves

Building a floating shelf is super-easy, requiring only a few boards and cuts. Here’s a quick run-down on some basics:

Measuring and making the cuts

You can check out a few plans to guide you on how to build your shelf. The width and depth depend on your needs, but you can cut the boards for the brace and make the cuts for the box with a table or circular saw.

Building the frame

Now, you can set the boards for the frame. You can have two on each end and at an appropriate spacing of 8-10″ apart. Also, ensure that the space is enough to accommodate the studs. You can also attach the boards with some structural screws.

Building the box

Build the box by attaching the material or plywood for the box. Fix them together with finished nails and wood glue. You can use the frame in setting up the box, which ensures that everything is aligned.

Attaching the frame to the wall

This part is the most critical for durable shelves. We would recommend that you attach the frame to studs or use good, quality anchors. You also have to make sure that you fasten the shelf to the wall by driving fasteners through the end of the frame into the anchors.

Putting it together

Now, it’s time to fix the box onto the frame and have the shelf together in one piece. And ta-da! Your new floating shelf is ready to roll (or, you know, have stuff put on it).

Selling DIY Floating Shelves

Now that we have covered much on making DIY floating shelves, selling stuff online can also begin with your self-made things. And a DIY floating shelf can be a perfect example. If you like to make things, or make some DIY stuff, and sell them, then you are on the right path. After all, the sky is big enough for the birds to fly. You can sell your stuff on different sites online as long as you get the hang of it and understand the requirements.

You can make things yourself and earn some money on the side. And there are numerous ways to go about this without necessarily being required to become a retail empire. Selling online is the most obvious choice, but the downsides to this option are that you will have to pay a shipping fee, and you are naturally at the mercy of the site’s policies and terms and conditions. Nevertheless, there are a few front runners including Etsy, eBay, and Ecwid.

The upsides to selling online, often outweigh the downsides. On one hand, you have a plethora of opportunities to upload your customized floating shelves on your website from the comfort of your home and have a wider reach of an audience through the power of the internet.

The ability to show the world creations that come from you and you alone is another reason people consider selling online. DIY floating shelves are just one example of the type of craftsmanship that sellers can become known for.

Final Verdict

You can build your own DIY floating shelves by thinking through some of the ideas we’ve given you in this article. Ideally, the purpose of having a DIY floating shelf is to declutter a clouded or clumsy space and improve the interior. Thus, a DIY floating shelf is an excellent storage option to organize items in the bathroom, kitchen, or living room. They serve as a nice wooden feature for the ambiance of your room, and on one side, you can make yourself one.

In addition to making DIY shelves for your house, you can make them for people to buy from you. If you try your hand at making your own floating shelves and think they turned out pretty well, this might be something to consider. After all, so many of the best consumer products on the market today started as home improvement or craft projects. Perhaps your unique brand of floating shelves will be the next big interior design thing. There’s only one way to find out…

Need DIY ideas to make and sell?

Discover DIY craft ideas and learn how you can sell them online.

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About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.

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