Not the most engrossing of queries, as this is probably very elementary stuff for most, so I apologise in advance for my ignorance. Basically I'm hoping to put some shelves up either side of my chimney breast. I've decided I wanted to do something of slightly higher quality and better cost-effectiveness than shop bought shelves, but unfortunately I am rather limited in terms of tools and expertise. My plan was therefore to get my local timber seller to cut some wood for me into shelves and then I would put them up. I've done this before and this would be no problem but I've decided I wanted to do floating shelves this time, which I've not done before. My first question is therefore is there a means of simply drilling holes into the shelves for the brackets in similar fashion to how they appear in shop bought shelves? For example one into the back of the shelves to put the shelf on the bracket and one into the base to secure the bracket. This is because all of the diy floating shelves I've come across online have used a sort of box design with multiple pieces of wood, which admittedly look great and look very solid but to be honest they are probably beyond my expertise and tools. My second question is therefore slightly void if I am cutting too many corners and this isn't possible, but I was also wondering what would be the most cost-effective wood for shelves like this? The alcove width is 123cm and I would just be having either books or DVDs on the shelves, nothing of any great weight. I was going to paint the shelves white, so the quality of the wood isn't so important, I just wanted something slightly thicker wood than most shop shelves. Would a fairly thick mdf suffice?
Cheers, any advice that could be provided would be much appreciated.
Cheers, any advice that could be provided would be much appreciated.