My First Shelves

Hi

I am a new home owner and have spent the last couple of months making my house liveable. Now I need to put up shelving for all my books. I know its not the most difficult of things to do in the grand scheme of things, but i could do with a little help and advise.

Working on a tight budget, I want to put up two long shelves in my study. I have bought from Homebase two 240cm/8ft pieces of furniture board (i think thats what its called). In hindsight this might not be the best material to use as it isnt solid wood, but hopefully i can make do. Basically I want to know the best way to put them up - the wall is concrete. can i just use brackets? how far apart should i place them? how long do the screws need to be? i assume i will need to use raw plugs? any help would be much appreciated.

ive put up seemingly hundreds of shelves and still have'nt got it rigth! but i do have some advice... get a spirit level! use brakets (unles its an alcove in which case screw wood battons on either side) screw one up at right height put shelf on that and level on it to get the right position of the next braket.

It's also worth fitting a piece of timber along the front edge. The wider the better. This will help prevent the roller coaster effect that you normally see when you mount thin board on shelf brackets. You can also use it to hide the front edge of the shelf.

One way of doing it is to fit a batten of say, 25x25mm to the underside of the front edge, then another piece of timber of say 18 x 75 (or wider if you have the space), to the front of this, with it's top edge level with the top of your shelf. You could then run a router along the edge to give a more aesthetic appearance. Alternatively, you can set the batten back (say 2 inches) and then mount your main piece to the front if it, beneath the shelf. This will give a plinth type effect. Whichever way you choose, the extra stiffness it gives to the front edge will make the world of difference.

If you are mounting shelf brackets, assuming they are all the same design. First of all decide how far apart you want them.

On the edge of one of your boards, put some pencil marks along the board at the relevant spacings. One mark for each bracket.

Now work out where you want the top hole of your first bracket and mark on the wall.

Now offer up the shelf to the wall (but flat against it) to use it as a ruler.

Check that you're holding it level by means of a spirit level on top and that it is level with your first mark.

Now mark the position of the other points on the wall. (you don't need to draw the entire line, just the relevant points).

Drill out all of these holes and put in the rawplugs.

Screw all the brackets to the wall using just these top holes.

Lay the shelf on top to ensure that the top faces of the brackets are sitting flat, and mark through the remaining mounting holes of the brackets.

Put the shelf to one side, then one by one, swivel the brackets out of the way, drill remaining holes, plug, rotate back into place and screw home.

Clean the pencil marks off the edge of your board, lay it on top of the brackets and fix.

BTW, Before using this method, make a quick visual check that the screw holes on your brackets are actually in the same place on each bracket. I've come a cropper before now with some of the cheepo wooden things, as they weren't.

fantastic, thats exactly what i needed! thanks very much.

i purchased 5 metal brackets per shelf (end brackets 10cm in from edge of shelf, then every 55cm) along with a pack of 2" screws.
i lined up where i wanted the shelves and where the brackets would need to go and started drilling... and found that there are big pebbles or stones in my wall. I tried moving the bracket to side and hit another pebble!

The only other wall the shelfs can go on is plasterboard, which is why i wanted to use the concrete one. the shelves are 8ft long, so thats a heavy load that needs supporting. however the plasterboard wall is 7.5ft long so i am now wondering if i can fit shleves along the full length of the wall and use each end to provide additional support so not all the weight is being taken by the back wall. Do you think i can do this on a plasterboard wall? if so what are the best hollow wall raw plugs etc?

Thanks in advance for any help!

If you're putting that sort of length along a stud and plasterboard wall, you'd be better off finding the studs (the upright wooden members behind the plasterboard). You can buy stud detectors for this very job. I can usually find them just by tapping allong the wall, listening for the change in sound (between hollow and solid). You can then use ordinary wood screws, something like 2" should hold pretty well.

I like to use a small pilot drill to mark the holes first, as this confirms that I have indeed, found a stud, and makes the screwing that bit easier.