virgoreader

When I bought my wood-and-metal bookcase in 2020 I really didn't foresee myself filling it so quickly and running out of room. By January 2021 it was overflowing and I got rid of almost 100 books (giving them away and putting together mystery boxes for my Instagram followers), and it worked for a while... until I put in a wall of bookshelves in my living room, continued accumulating books, and again ran out of room. 

I decided to sell my bookcase, because while I liked it, it didn't maximize the space in the corner of my bedroom. I wanted something more floor to ceiling and debated between an Expedit from Ikea (not tall enough), floating shelves, and rail shelves.

After a bit of debating, I decided to go with rail shelves over floating shelves. That way I could change the height of the shelves as needed - also I've had some bad luck with floating shelves and wasn't sure I could make sure it was as sturdy as it needed to be.

Here's a quick run through of how I planned and executed these new shelves:

1. Measure the area where you will put the shelves and decide how many shelves you want and at what heights; I marked mine with masking tape
2. Determine what supplies you will need: how many rail supports, shelves, and shelf brackets. I bought all of mine from Home Depot (the Rubbermaid line). I chose to get a 72" shelf and cut it myself with my miter saw for one 20" piece and one 52" piece, for a very small "L" shaped corner shelf. I got 2 rail shelves for my 20" piece and 4 for my 52" piece
3. Find studs and attach the rail supports to the walls. This was the HARDEST part for me. I have a stud finder but I'm pretty hopeless with it, so I actually outsourced this to a local handyman and I'm so glad I did. Some studs are kind of diagonal so he was able to angle the screws to hit it exactly and I felt good knowing the supports were all super secure. He had me put a shelf on to test and had me hang off of it to show how sturdy it was
4. Attach shelf brackets - make sure you get the twin track brackets NOT the single track bracket. Yes, I bought the single track brackets first and had to return and exchange 50+
5. Put on the shelves. This is the easy part! If you're going to cut a bigger shelf down like I did, make some kind of template to ensure each shelf is the same size. Also remember to cut them so the cut side isn't "outward facing"