Invisible Shelves

The other day my wife mentioned an article on wikihow that explained how to make “invisble shelves”.  I have to admit that I am a sucker for simple and innovative projects such as this one, so when she also mentioned that she’d like something like that for her recipe books, off to the local thrift store I went.

First, the finished result:

The reason this is so neat is that it appears to just be a stack of books floating on your wall.  Due to the location where I mounted the shelf, it is a bit hard to see here, but it really does make you do a double-take when seen in person.

Want to build your own?  Here’s how:

The secret is that the bottom book is actually the shelf.  I opted to find an old, large, hardback cookbook from a thrift store.

This cost me a whopping $3.00.

My wife wanted the jacket removed from the book first, so off it came:

In addition to the book, I also grabbed a large L bracket and some small screws from the hardware store, and used some glue that I already had on hand:

The first thing I did was open the book’s cover, and find the center of the page.  I then marked out the width of the L bracket such that I could cut the pages out and create a notch for the L bracket:

Then I got out my trusty scissors and started cutting pages.

Once I had cut enough pages out for the L bracket arm, I needed to remove a bit more right at the edge of the book to accommodate the bend in the L.

Then I notched the edge of the opposite cover so that the edge of the book would sit flush against the wall.

Screw in the L bracket (push really hard to make sure the screw bites through all the pages):

Now it’s time to get crazy with the glue.  I wound up gluing a bunch right along the bracket to seal the top of the bracket (the face with the screw heads exposed in the picture above) to the cover that closes on top of it, as well as down in the groove I cut for the L bracket along the edges of all the pages .  I also glued the opposite cover down, and for good measure randomly flipped through the remaining pages and put a dab of glue on every 4-5 pages at the corners.  Then I buried the whole thing under a bunch of heavy books to dry overnight.

Now, I used Gorilla Glue, which expands as it cures…..I must have used a little too much.

So, I simply trimmed off the excess and mounted it on the wall (used a stud finder to find a convenient stud, attached it with 3″ grabber deck screws.  Then my wife started tossing all her recipe books on it.  Here are a few more shots of the finished product:

All said and done, this project cost in the neighborhood of $10 – $12 (bracket, screws, glue, book) and took about an hour to complete (not counting the overnight drying time for the glue).  I’d love to see the results if any of you tackle this project.