M & L McDaniel: A few weekend DIY projects...

Floating kitchen shelves:

During the kitchen wall renovation in early 2013, we had to get creative with the space. There ended up being a lot of pipes in the wall we removed so we re-routed as best we were allowed. This however left wall space we hadn't planned on. This extra space by the new transaction bar top we put in, ended up becoming our coffee nook. The problem was, we no longer had cabinets to store coffee mugs(and we have a lot!).

I had found several ideas for this area, but this one stuck out. (Shanty 2 chic is quickly becoming my favorite planner of diy projects!)

http://www.shanty-2-chic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/DIY-Floating-Shelves-Free-Plans.pdf

You start by making the brackets which are drilled into the walls. We had to go ahead and stain one side of them because the final location wouldn't allow us the space to do so.

Normally, you would find the studs and screw them to the wall. Yeah, we didn't really think this one thru. Remember all the pipes we had to reroute during the kitchen reno? Guess where they were?Behind this wall. So we had to think outside the box and set in dry wall screws(very carefully).

Once on the wall, we used wood glue for the bottom piece and then used brad nails for the remaining side, top and front. We secured them with braces while hammering on them just to be cautious.

Then we used wood filler on any of the gaps and holes. After a gentle sanding, we stained them using the Kona stain from our farmhouse table.

They turned out beautifully! We still have to figure out what to do with our coffee cup collection, but this holds enough for us and the occasional visitors.