Doll Shelves

If your child’s toys are taking up all the floor space in their room, you can add shelves to not only add some style to the area but give your child more space in which to play.

What you’ll need
-lumber
-table saw (available at tool rental outlets)
-paint
-safety glasses
-tape measure
-drill
-drywall anchors
-brackets w/ mounting plates
-decorative railing
-trim

Getting Started
    The first step in adding shelves to an area is to measure the area where they’ll be installed.
    Once you’ve got your measurements, go to your local lumber yard or home center and buy your material.
    A standard size for shelves is to buy a 1” by 8” board. That way your shelves will be eight inches wide.
    You can buy lumber in standard 8’ lengths or as long as 12’ lengths.
    In addition, you’ll need brackets to hold the shelves up on the wall.   
You’ll also want to choose some decorative trim and maybe add railings. You can buy these pre-cut and ready to paint at most home centers.
    Once you’ve got your lumber, measure and mark it to fit your area.
    Then use a table saw to cut the boards to length.
    After the boards are cut, a good tip is to paint the shelves before you hang them so that if there’s any damage or scratching during installation, all you’ll need to do is some touch up work and that way you’ll have less of a mess on your hands than if you painted the shelves inside.

    As the lumber dries, again use the measurements of the area where you’re installing the shelves and determine how far apart your brackets need to be to give the room a uniform look.
    Next determine how high you want to hang the shelves.
    For example, if you want the top of your shelves to hang at 13 inches below the ceiling, you have to also figure in the bracket and its mounting plate so that you don’t hang the shelves too high.
    So if we want the shelves to hang 13” below the ceiling, we also need to add to that number the thickness of  our board (1” in our case) as well as the length of the bracket mounting plate.
    To determine the bracket’s height, measure from the top of the bracket to the  middle of the mounting plate on the back of the bracket. In our case it was one and quarter inches. So add the thickness of our board (1”) to the length of the mounting plate on the bracket (1 ¼”) so that’s 2 ¼” and then add that to the 13” where we want to hang our shelves and our total is 15 ¼”.
    So measure down from the ceiling 15 ¼” and make a mark. This is where you need to drill to mount the bracket.
    Use an awl to punch a dimple in the drywall, you don’t want to go all the way through the wall, just use it as a reference to where you want to install your drywall anchors.
    Once you’ve done this around the room, then take a drill and a drywall anchor (looks like a giant plastic screw) and slowly screw the anchor into the wall.
    Drywall anchors come in varying sizes and can hold different weights.
    Once the drywall anchors are in around the room, then take the metal screw that comes with the anchor and screw that into the anchor.
    Be sure to leave the screw out about 1/8” because this is what the bracket will hang on.
    Once those are in place, take the bracket, and slide the mounting plate on the back onto the screw and it will sit firmly in place.
    Now bring in the shelves and you’re ready to attach them to the brackets.
    Again use your drill and use a wood screw to attach the shelf to the brackets all the way around the room.
    TIP: Attach the wood screw into the bracket from the top of the shelf so that you can’t see the screw from underneath the shelf, this will look much better.

    Once the shelves are in place, you add the decorative railings. Just nail them into the shelves using finishing nails and again do this from the top so that your shelves will look unblemished from underneath.
    Finally, you can add 1” trim to the front of the shelf boards to finish them out and make them look nice.
    Good luck!