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Had a guy ask me to build him a floating shelf that could hold his bowling ball collection
I was working a job over in Oak Park last month, framing out a basement for this older fella. He comes down and sees my layout lines on the plywood, and he gets this real serious look. He points to a bare stretch of wall and says he wants a shelf there, no brackets showing, and it's gotta hold 16 bowling balls. I thought he was joking until he showed me the rack in his garage... 16 balls, all custom drilled with his name. I tried explaining that a floating shelf without supports would need some serious blocking and maybe a steel bracket inside the wall, but he kept saying he'd seen it done on TV. So I put in three 2x4s bolted to the studs and covered it with oak, no way that thing's coming down. He looked at it later and said it didn't look "floating" enough, but I told him floating means it stays on the wall not ends up on the floor. Has anyone else run into customers who want physics to bend for their ideas?
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susanm565d ago
cole994's point about walls carrying the weight is spot on, and it's the part people forget when they see those TV shelves. The hidden hardware in the wall is basically a cantilever system, so the wall itself has to handle torque that most folks never think about. Blocking between studs is the only real way to do it right for heavy loads like bowling balls, otherwise that drywall will just crumble out. Hollyl45's story about the glass shelf and the adhesive is exactly what I'm talking about, no glue in the world is going to hold shear force from a bunch of bottles over time.
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hollyl456d ago
You ever had a customer who watched one YouTube video and suddenly they're an engineer? I did a job last year for a lady who wanted a glass shelf to hold her antique perfume bottles. No brackets, just glass floating. I told her glass that thick would need a steel frame behind the drywall, and she said she'd seen it done with just adhesive. I ended up putting in a hidden metal bracket system like you did with your 2x4s. She complained it was too thick but I told her the bottles would be fine. That's the thing with floating shelves, people don't get that the wall has to do all the work. You did right blocking it into the studs. Tell him if he wants it thinner he can go buy a store shelf that'll sag after a week. Some folks just need a real explanation, not a TV trick.
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Did you ever catch yourself almost buying into the whole "floating" hype before a job like this made you think twice? I used to think it was just about hiding the hardware until I realized the wall still has to carry the weight.
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