Shelf

I wanted to make a shelf for above the desk in the office for storing all papery type things so the desk wasn't too cluttered.

I looked around for inspiration

I liked the idea of a box within a box but I wanted a design that snaked up the wall next to and over the desk.

I saw this plan on Ana White's website and decided to use the joining method but design my own shelf.

I used SketchUp to come up with this:

I got my wood cut to size for free when I bought it so all I needed to do was mark the notches out of the pieces of wood

I then cut the notches out using my jigsaw, glued them together, checked for square and hunted out all the heavy things I owned to keep them in place until the wood had dried.

I then primed it and painted it a high gloss white like the desk.

Each box is 40x40cm in size and 20cm deep, with a 5 cm end bit outside of the box.

I then routed out mortises to fit some keyhole hangers I bought at the DIY shop. I also made a slightly deeper hole in the mortise to fit the screw head.
These then sit flush in the shelf and are held up by screws attached to the wall. You feed the screw through the bigger hole of the keyhole hanger and it drops into place and is held tight in the narrower shaft.
I have also put little plastic stoppers on that you can also see in the photo below to stop the shelf scratching the walls.

I was originally just going to attach these with L brackets but am so glad I made the effort to borrow a neighbour's router and attach it using keyhole hangers - I love a nice "floating" shelf!