Shelves for the hall bath

The plans for the new house included cabinets over the toilet in the hall bath. Since I knew I would want open shelves, I had the builder skip ordering those.

I’m sure the builder would have created and installed some open shelves, but like many other design elements of this house, I had a vision for how I wanted the shelves to look and I wanted for us to create and install them.

The shelves are simple 2×8 lumber, cut to length, sanded, stained, and sealed. I used Minwax stain in Early American, and Minwax Polycrylic topcoat in Clear Satin. I really like using the Polycrylic because it’s water-based and dries pretty quickly. That all happened WEEKS ago, but we’re just now getting to install them.

We decided on where we wanted the shelves, centering them over the toilet tank. We unfortunately discovered that we wouldn’t be able to use the studs to mount the hardware for the shelves. But on the up-side, that also meant that we could place the brackets without regard to the stud location.

There are TONS of hollow wall anchors to choose from! I picked these up because they look like they are more stable than some we’ve used in the past, and easier to install.

Using a level and tape measure, we marked where the anchors needed to go, then installed them according to directions. The brackets were mounted to the wall using the anchors, then the shelves were laid on top of the brackets. Finally, the shelves were fixed to the brackets using little set screws.