DIY Floating Shelves and Home Office Space

Do you love the look of floating shelves? Today we are going to show you how to make floating shelves and a home office area easily and inexpensively using IKEA supplies! 

floating shelves on a stenciled wall


This idea was my daughter's and I think it is slightly genius! 


My daughter Kasey and I have worked together on numerous DIY projects throughout the years. 


The first step to create a home office area was to paint the wall then add a decorative stencil


decorative stenciled wall


As you scroll through this post please pay attention to the bold blue links for more information and the products I used for this project. 


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My daughter's vision was to build an area in the alcove in her den with a desk and then build floating shelves on the wall. 


She was definitely the brains and brawn of this project! 


desk area with floating shelves


The desk was easily made using 2 file shelving units called ALEX from IKEA and a long desk top from the IKEA clearance department called LAGKAPTEN. 


The desk can be cut with a circular saw to the size of the alcove with the cut end into the wall so it can not be seen. 


While cutting the table top to fit into the alcove we realized that the inside of the table was mostly hollow and filled with a thin cardboard. 


inside of IKEA table


And this is how you make floating shelves above the desk area using an IKEA table top. 


First, we bought the smaller sized IKEA table top called LINNMON and measured the width we wanted the shelves to be. 


Using a circular saw, we cut 2 shelves from either side of the table. 


cutting ikea table with circular saw


Like I said, the inside is cardboard so using a piece of wood that fit inside, we crushed the cardboard slightly to fit a wood brace inside. 


inside of ikea table


You can see that there is a solid area on both sides of the cardboard, the width of the brace you will make will be the length of only the cardboard area only. 


To make the wood brace we used 1x1 trim moulding and created a bracket with a piece of wood sticking out on both sides. 


The size of the pieces of wood sticking out will depend on the depth of the shelf you cut. 


We attached the wood bracket to the wall, into the studs, using screws. 


bracket made for wall with floating shelves


Once the bracket was attached to the wall all you need to do is to slide the shelf onto the bracket. 


one shelf and one bracket


We used a rubber mallet to gently nudge the shelf onto the bracket. 


The fabric is to protect the shelf. 


rubber mallet banging shelf onto bracket


We put the good side of the table facing down because that is what you are going to see from below. 


white underside of the floating shelf

top of floating shelf


The top of the shelf will be painted white to match the rest.


Lastly, using a nail gun, we nailed the back of the shelf onto the bracket. 


nail gun on top of shelf


That is it! 


2 finished floating shelves

finished desk area


This genius idea is sturdy and holds everything you would want to display. 


home office with floating shelves


The shelves look amazing over the top of the desk and they look perfect on this stenciled wall. 


This was an easy way to create floating shelves and the office alcove was a great place to do it.


Please pin ---->> 


home office with shelves and overlay

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Homeroad
Homeroad

I am Susan, the author and creator at Homeroad. I am a wife, mother of 4 daughters, and a grandmother of 5 and counting. I am a retired teacher, a DIY blogger and an artist at heart. .