Advice for attaching shelves to brick wall w/out cleats

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Hi guys,

I'm starting a new project in my house, to build some built in bookcases in my alcoves in my bedroom. I have some "floating" shelves down in my living room using this method:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cm/popularmechanics/images/1X/floatingshelf-illo.jpg

However, the design I am looking for for the bedroom ones are more of a built-in look, similar to this:
http://www.thehausdoctor.com/images/small/beautiful-built-in-bookcase.jpg

So the shelves need to be thinner. I want to attach the shelves direct to the wall and then attach a face to the front to give it the bookcase look. The problem I'm having is that I don't want the cleats to be visible on my shelves. Can anyone suggest how I can attach the shelves without using cleats? If worst comes to worst, I will just use more decorative cleats.

Also, if anyone could send me the direction of any good resources that could help me design this, it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
 
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Might I also add, I am something of an amateur at carpentry. I don't have access to any machinery or fancy tools. I built the shelves downstairs using a mitre saw, hand saw, drill and a few other simple tools.
 
Cleats , isn't that a boating or cycling term?
The photo is of a complete shelf unit assembled using traditional methods, the individual shelves are not attached to the wall but part of the overall structure.
Don't see how you can make thin floating shelves short of using sky hooks.
A built in look is achieved by doing just that, building them in.
 
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I would say those shelves are resting on shelf pegs in the uprights.

If you intend to have uprights then use that method or fix through the uprights into the sid eof the shelf, this will only be OK upto a certain shelf length as once they get too long they will start to sag.

One method I use is to have a back on the unit from something like 6 or 9mm MDF and you can also fix through this into the back of the shelf, the trick is to paint the back the wall colour then it looks like the shelves fit to the wall and you also avoid the problem of fitting all the shelves to wonky walls.

Something like this fitted and then in the workshop before painting

PICT0014.jpg


ppg4.jpg
 

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