Shorter Shelves - BIG Impact

custom floating shelves

 

Whether you're in the middle of a complete renovation, or making a few updates to your home, one of the final steps may be installing storage, like beautiful open shelving.

Here at J Thomas Home, we custom-cut each item upon order, and we would love to make wooden floating shelves for you!
We can create wall shelving out of just about any wood species you’d like.
We can also accommodate custom depths and length requests, as well, up to about 11.25” out from the wall, and 46 inches long.

 

While beautiful custom-built homes may have wall-to-wall open shelving in large chef’s kitchens or fireplace nooks, it’s important to know many of these shelves are built-ins, and built on site. 

These shelves may also require specific backing be built in behind the wall so that extra long and heavy shelves can be properly supported in that space.

We make many of our shelves out of solid wood with industrial metal brackets. By keeping our shelves 46 inches long and under, the floating shelves are still manageable to lift and hold in place for most customers to install themselves.

The shelves can easily be supported with proper install directly into present studs, or the use of heavy-duty anchors, like togglers, in addition to the items you plan to store on your shelving (without requiring additional backing to be added into the walls, like longer, heavier shelves).
By using shorter shelving, multiple shelves can be cut from the same length of wood. Then, the unique grain patterns of the shelves match better as a set for an overall more consistent outcome – whether the shelves are kept natural or stained.
If you've ever shopped for lumber, you know it can sometimes be quite a task to find a straight board! We handpick each board we use for our shelving. Longer shelves make each step of the process more difficult and time consuming, which increases the price. Shorter shelves are a more economical option for most renovators.
Additionally, postage to ship one or more large items is quite costly. The rate increases due to extra handling fees for the “over-sized” packages and weight restrictions in place with most shipping providers.

While we package our pieces with the utmost-care, bubble wrap and foam edge protection, large packages tend to be damage-prone. The long, awkward, heavy packages get dragged and knocked around more in transit, instead of lifted and carefully placed down at your doorstep.  
Because we know staying on time and budget is very important at this stage for most renovators, open shelving 46 inches long and under help finish up most projects beautifully, quicker, without paying too much in materials or shipping costs, and less frustration of items arriving damaged or issues during install.
Designing an area with shorter shelves can be an opportunity for creativity and added interest. Here are some really great examples!

Staggering shelving across your wall in off-centered patterns creates movement.

 

 

Consider breaking up columns of stacked shelves with gaps on either side to create space, and a place for your eyes to visually rest.

 

Or even install shorter shelves side-by-side to create the look of one long shelf! Even though a small seam will be seen, this may be an option to consider -- especially if pricing is a problem for longer shelving.

If you are having trouble visualizing how shorter shelves may be able to be used in your space, please feel free to snap and send some photos of your area, and we’ll gladly take a look and see what advice we can offer!


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