Wall mounted shelves are an easy way to add storage to any room. Whether you use metal or wood shelves and brackets, or floating shelves, wall shelves are a great way to use vertical space, especially in smaller rooms. And best of all, they are very easy to install yourself. Here's a quick how-to guide.
1. Use a stud finder to find your wall studs. Slide it along the wall until you see or hear the indicator (depending on your model you may hear a beep or see a red line). This tells you that you have reached the edge of a wall stud. Mark this location with a pencil. Now start again from the opposite side, just a little further over and slide the finder along towards the mark you just made until it indicates that you have found the other edge of the stud, and mark this point as well.
Metal Floating Shelves
Move about 32 inches or so, and do this again to find your second stud. If your wall shelves are not large enough to hit both studs, then you do not need to repeat the process. Simply use wall plugs for the brackets that are not going to be drilled in to the stud.
2. Hold one of your brackets at the area you want to hang it. Mark the screw hole with your pencil. Make sure you are starting at the stud. Now, use your drill to make a pilot hole at the pencil mark. If there are two screw holes on your bracket, then mark and drill two pilot holes.
3. Holding the bracket in place with the screw holes over the pilot holes, drill or screw the appropriate screw into the pilot holes. Make it snug, but don't over-tighten it at this point.
4. Using a level, align your second bracket along the wall and mark the screw holes. Drill your pilot holes, then insert wall plugs. Now, screw your brackets into the wall plugs. The wall plugs will provide a more secure hold to the wall, when you cannot use a stud to secure the brackets.
5. Tighten all of your screws, then attach the wall shelf to the brackets. Again, use your level to make sure that it is properly balanced.
As you can see, installing wall mounted shelves is a simple project that you can easily accomplish in less than an hour! And now all you have to do is sit back and enjoy your newly organized room.