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" I&amp;#039;m fascinated with floating shelves. I&amp;#039;ve built one\u2014it looked okay, but a little rough. What&amp;#039;s the right way to do this? Floating shelves are making a comeback. I&amp;#039;m not sure when they first came into being, but PM was covering them as early as the 1950s. Like many old ideas, they&amp;#039;ve received a boost as new homeowners have discovered their clean and simple look. One basic execution is to bore a pair of holes into wall studs, insert metal bars or wood dowels into the framing and slip a solid wood shelf over the supports. The problem with this design is that the holes in the framing and the shelf have to be very carefully bored so they are parallel to one another and in the same plane. Otherwise the shelf won&amp;#039;t easily slip over the supports. Our design (shown below) has more parts, but it&amp;#039;s still easy to build and install. It&amp;#039;s forgiving of small inaccuracies in construction and installation.  Build the shelf, which is nothing more than a small hollow box, and test fit the wall cleat in it. Then simply attach the wall cleat to the studs, slip the shelf over it and screw the shelf to the cleat. Although it&amp;#039;s ideal to mount the cleat to two studs, you can also attach it to a stud on one end and use a hollow wall anchor at the other end.  Build a Box; Build a Shelf A floating shelf is nothing more than a hollow box built out of plywood and pine. The box&amp;#039;s top and bottom panels rest in rabbets cut into the sides and front, which are mitered at the front corners. The wall cleat is a piece of 2 x 4 sawed to width. (Illustration by Gabriel Silveira) "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to-plans/how-to/a5623/how-to-build-a-floating-wall-shelf-with-plans/>