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DIY: Honeycomb Shelves June 29, 2017 04:00
Becky and I are both big DIY people. We love decorating and improving things around our homes on a budget.
I just moved into a new house last November and my list of projects is growing steadily. Instead of getting overwhelmed by all of my ideas I wanted to take a step back and share about a great DIY I did a few years back that has just found it's fourth home.
This amazing honeycomb shelf now lives in my son's nursery (do you still call it a nursery when they are almost two?). I was inspired by a blog post on Design Sponge. I won't go through all of the details step by step, but I'll share some highlights and things I did a bit differently.
Drafting up plans for the shelf was the first step for me (probably that engineering background). I wanted to improve the shelf shared on Design Sponge by tidying up the intersecting corners a bit.
Below is my plan that covers the revised layout to eliminate corner issues, number of pieces needed, length of each piece, direction of angles required on each piece, and a takeoff for total length of wood needed.
I used roughly the same lengths and all angles were still cut at 30 degrees, similar to the Design Sponge design.
The benefit, is that my corners turned out a bit more finished:
I built my shelf using 1"x 6" lumber, the cheapest I could find at the store that wasn't warped. I applied Gorilla Wood Glue to each piece prior to using a brad gun to permanently attach them. The wood glue was clutch, it really made everything feel more sturdy once it dried. If you are a fellow perfectionist, you can putty the heads of the brads and sand the area smooth for a bit more of a polished look.
My shelf is currently on it's third paint job, to match the room decor.
I also switched up the mounting design. I still used 'L' brackets but I like to hide the vertical leg by attaching it to the wall behind the shelf itself.
I use three brackets, one at each intermediate horizontal piece. I make sure each bracket hits a stud (typically 16" OC) for added safety and shelf capacity.
We are always looking for the next DIY idea, have you tried any lately you'd like to share?