Floating Bathroom Shelves

The one fact that always holds true is that there is never enough storage in a bathroom. In our main bathroom for example, the only place we have for storage is in the vanity under the sink. However, our toilet is in a little alcove with walls on three sides, providing a perfect spot for floating shelves.

The tops and bottoms of the shelves are made from 3/4" veneer plywood, and the shelf faces are cedar trim boards. My finished shelves are 5"x30" and 3" thick.

I was able to build them entirely with scrap wood, but even if you were starting from scratch, it would only cost you about $20 total.

Materials needed:
6 - 3/4"x5"x30" plywood shelf boards
3 - 3"x30" trim boards
3 - 1"x2"x30" mounting boards (for back wall support)
6 - 1"x2"x4" mounting boards (for side wall support)
screws, anchors, brad nails
sandpaper, stain, paint

Measure the width of your back wall and cut your mounting boards to length. My mounting boards are 1"x2" boards left over from when our roof was redone. (These are the same boards that I used to build the wooden crates last month.) Our toilet alcove is about 30 inches wide, but the walls aren't perfectly straight, so each board had to be customized. I cut the mounting boards to just under 30 inches first, and then shortened each one of them a sawblade's width at a time until they fit perfectly.

Using a stud finder, locate the wall studs on the back wall and mark the locations on your mounting boards. Drill holes through your boards, aligning them with the marks you made for the studs.

Place the first board against the wall in the location you've chosen, and use a level to position it horizontally. Drill your screws through the holes in the board and attach it securely to the wall. Repeat with the other two mounting boards. My shelves are positioned 14" apart.

The mounting boards on the side walls were only 4 inches long, so I wasn't able to attach them to a stud. When you aren't able to hit the studs, you'll need to use wall anchors.

Pre-drill the holes in your side mounting boards. Place a board in position and use the level to line it up with the back mounting board. Drill through the holes just enough to touch the wall behind and mark your anchor spots on the wall.

For a shelf that is this shallow, an anchor is only needed for the front hole - the back end of the mounting board is tight against the rear mounting board and only needs a screw to hold it in place. Repeat the process for the other side wall mounting boards and install your anchors. Once your anchors are in place you can attach the side mounting boards to the wall.

Cut your top and bottom plywood boards to length (approx. 30 inches in my case). Repeat with your face boards. Sand and stain one side of each plywood board, and one side plus the long edges of each face board. I stained my boards with Jacobean stain from Minwax, and then followed up with a light wash of flat white paint to give a weathered look. You could also finish up with polyurethane or furniture wax if your shelves were going to see a lot of traffic.

Take your first plywood board and lay it on top of your first mounting framework, stained side up. You may have to adjust the length of your board if your walls are uneven like mine. Again, shorten the board just a little at a time so that you don't end up with it too short. Once your board fits snugly, nail it to the mounting boards using the air nailer. You could also attach the boards with screws, but you'll need to putty and stain the screw holes when you're done, while the brad nails are virtually invisible.

Take your second plywood board and fit it snugly below your mounting framework. Nail it in place as with the first board.

Repeat the two previous steps with the other shelves.

Take a front face board and fit it into place, lining it up top and bottom with the plywood. Nail it into place all around the edges. Repeat for the other shelves.

Step back and admire your new floating shelves.

They're a perfect place to store extra rolls of toilet paper and bath towels, as well as showing off your favourite knickknacks. (And of course a scented candle or two to keep the air fresh.)

Additional note -

If your shelves are longer or you've made them significantly deeper than mine, you may want to add 1"x2" center supports between the top and bottom face boards (i.e. sandwiched inside the shelf). This will keep your shelves from sagging over time, especially if they are supporting something heavy.

Main Bathroom - Mini-Makeover

We have a rough schedule in our heads of when certain projects will be done. The main bathroom renovation is a long way down the list, definitely after the basement and the kitchen. The bathroom is going to be a "to the studs" gut, and as it's the only bathroom with a shower in it right now, it's going to have to wait until we at least have a shower in the ensuite.

Buuuuut....Tom was getting really frustrated with the vessel sinks. He's not a fan of them to begin with, and to make it worse there were two - in this tiny space. Completely unnecessary. This is where he gets ready in the morning, so he had to look at them every day. He didn't think he could stand them much longer, let alone for a year or two, so he decided to do a mini-makeover - a Phase 1 renovation if you will.

If you remember from the new house tour, this was the original bathroom:

And this is how it looks now:

Since this was only an intermediate makeover, we didn't want to spend too much money - after all, it was just going to be done all over again later. Tom found a granite-topped vanity with a single sink (single sink!) for $125 at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. The top, sink, and tap were all in excellent shape, and the cabinet was just missing a drawer and the toe-kick trim (the other drawers and door are out of frame).

The new vanity was a little bit wide for the space, so we had the top cut down on each side by a contractor friend. The sections that were removed were large enough to become side splashes - our friend even polished the edges for us.

The base cabinet also had to be cut down and so we lost the side drawers. But we might just build new, narrower ones or add some shelves instead. Tom was even able to reuse the doors - they just had to be cut down, repainted, and have new hinges attached. Once the vanity was in I gave the room a fresh coat of paint - in BM Collingwood. It's the same colour I painted the kitchen and living room, and I still had 3/4 of a gallon left over.

The final change was to take out the two medicine cabinets/mirrors and replace them with a single larger, wood-framed mirror. We already had a large mirror just languishing in a closet, and Tom built the frame from scrap wood - the same wood I used for the coat rack/shelf in the front entryway actually.

I added two framed photos that were previously hanging in the computer room at our old house, a wicker basket to hold Tom's toiletries, and one of our beloved wooden sea turtles.

If you're keeping track, the costs were:
vanity - $125
granite cutting - $0
paint - $0
mirror - $0
frame - $0
decorations - $0

That's it, that's all. $125 makeover. I think it might be a new record. And Tom's happy, so I'm happy - even if he does spend more time in the bathroom than he did before.

One Final Tour of Our Old House (with Before & Afters)

We've been in our new house for a month now. With the combination of Christmas and snowstorms and all those daily, little chores that steal away your time, we haven't done more than a few superficial repairs and changes so far - things like installing some temporary strip lighting in the closet (instead of using a flashlight to find matching clothes in the morning) and putting up a shelter to keep the snow off my precious car.

It's difficult not to compare this new house with our last one - we had spent seven years making changes and improvements, making it ours. Just like a fitness journey, "You can't compare your beginning to someone else's middle", I have to keep reminding myself that the new house will be beautiful some day and the joy is in getting it there.

With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to take one last look at our old house, the before & after, and highlight some of our favourite projects.

When we moved in, the house was mostly decorated in green, yellow, and orange. We thought it was perfect and didn't change a thing. It took about two years before it started feeling a little too Southwestern for our tastes. We slowly brought in some neutrals, starting with the living room and foyer.

Before:

After (BM Ranchwood):

Once you change the walls though, suddenly your kitchen cabinets no longer match. I'd originally planned to strip the green and stain them a dark brown, but in the end went with a clean white. It instantly lightened up the whole room, especially since there was no window to bring in extra light.

We also added undercounter lighting (touchless!), and changed out all of the appliances. We kept the terracotta-coloured tiles and I think they go just as well with taupe and white as they did with yellow and green.

Before:

After:

Upstairs, the front room was our "computer room", aka the office. It had a huge bay window and received the most sunshine of the whole house. It was the dogs' favourite hangout for sure. We changed it from a deep cranberry to a light blue, and accented with white picture frames and a grey loveseat.

Before:

After (BM Nimbus Grey):

The custom-made glass front bookcases have been with me for over 15 years - from my apartment in Toronto to three houses now - I'll never let them go.

We turned one of the bedrooms into a craft room. It really became an everything room - gift wrapping, sewing, photography studio, and crafting of course. It started out midnight blue with little stars stickers all over the walls. Big change!

Before:

After:

My favourite (I say that a lot) project in here is the wrapping paper and ribbon station. Tom and I designed it together using ideas we saw online and then tweaking it along the way until we had what worked for us. It was wonderful having all of my wrapping supplies right on hand whenever I needed them.

The guest room was the first room I painted here. It started out as a bright, bright yellow. I painted it one weekend while Tom was away. He didn't even notice it had changed until I told him about a month later. I just went to the paint store and grabbed a colour that I liked. I didn't like it for long but never got around to changing it either. So this room ended up being a mishmash of leftover decorating items. We even stored all of our extra artwork under the bed! It does contain my first piece of refinished furniture though - the  stained & waxed dresser from Goodwill. This is when I fell in love with finishing a piece with furniture wax instead of polyurethane.

Smaller projects were the main bathroom, the powder room, and the linen closet in the upstairs hallway. In the main bathroom, beyond paint, we replaced the medicine cabinet and mirror with custom-made pieces we did ourselves. Tom has become an old hand at building mirror frames. The ones in the powder room and ensuite were built by him as well.

The linen closet received all new shelving, a more streamlined laundry chute (I miss that so much!), and framed bi-fold doors. We also framed out and added bi-fold doors to the front foyer coat closet.

Before:

After:

The two biggest changes upstairs were the master bedroom and the ensuite bathroom. The top half of the bedroom walls were done in a textured plaster with a brown glaze over yellow paint. I wasn't a fan, but I thought it would be too much work to scrape it all down and repair the walls. So I just painted it all one colour - first a dark grey (BM Arctic Seal) that was way too dark (think prison cell) - and then a lighter grey that was much more soothing.

Before:

1st Change (BM Stormy Monday):

I got a hankering for more though, so I installed faux board and batten wainscoting all around the bottom half of the room. This project was all mine. I learned so much about using different power tools that week. And my body paid the price for all that crawling around on the floor. There's something I adore about grey and white together. The room felt like a suite at a fancy hotel. One covered in dog hair of course.

After (BM Stormy Monday):

The ensuite bathroom was our pride and joy. It was a complete gut, right down to the studs. We even had to replace some studs because they were warped and weren't even connected to the drywall! We painstakingly chose all of the finishes, even driving to another town to get more tile when our local store ran out just as it was almost finished. We had the tile installed by a contractor as we knew it would take us months of evening and weekend work to get it done.

Before:

After:

Tom rerouted all of the plumbing himself so that we could have a wall-hung vanity. He also framed out the shower niche, built the mirror frame and shelves, and of course designed and built the inset toilet paper holder that he is so proud of.

The ensuite in our new house is a bit of a blank slate. We'll probably incorporate some of the same ideas - wood grain floor tile, inset toilet paper holder (as if that was in question!), wall-hung vanity - and we're going to have a go at doing it all ourselves. Cross your fingers for us!

The basement was fully finished when we moved in so there wasn't a lot to do. We rearranged some things like the washer/dryer and water heater, and installed a water softener, but most of the changes were cosmetic. We painted the entire basement a warm blue as we were going for a cottage/beachy feel. We changed out all of the lighting, hung some "beachy" artwork, and I painted a huge pallet sign. It's an homage to our favourite beach rental in Hawaii.

Before:

After:

We turned the cold storage into a regular storage area (it was still pretty cold) with wood paneled walls and strong wooden shelves. I always loved the smell of that room - I think I'm a carpenter at heart.

The backyard also got an overhaul. The house came with a tiny, tiny deck, actually two tiny decks attached to each other, but not on the same level. We raised up the second deck, enlarged it, and then added another lower deck off to the side where we hung our hammock. The plain wooden rail pickets were replaced with metal balusters.

The final project was to enclose the bottom of the deck, something we did just a month or so before we listed the house. It's too bad we didn't do it sooner as it really added to the appeal.

Before:

After:

Whew! That was a lot of change. We loved renovating this house. We made a few changes to our previous house (beyond paint), but this one was where we really got our groove on. I'm really going to miss it.

Here are a few more photos from the real estate listing that show it off like a model home.

(All real estate photos courtesy of West Blue Studio Services)