Floating Shelves for Dummy Carpenters

floating bookshelves

An unsurprising number of the nominees for our DotD were written by freelancers who had only the barest notion of what they were supposedly writing about. Many of the contributors to the old eHow.com (now a gaggle of niche sites) merely plugged the "title they'd claimed," as eHowians call finding a topic, into Google and reworded one or two of the first search results. The problem was, of course, that many authors lacked sufficient familiarity with the subject to realize where Google, the author, or both had fallen short. Today's an example: returning awardee Carson Barrett and the HomeSteady.com post, "How to Build Floating Shelves That Can Hold Lots of Books."

Most people who have "lots of books" are well aware that the darned things are heavy, especially if they've ever moved. In other words, a floating shelf that can support them would have to be quite sturdy. Barrett, already a three-time winner, apparently didn't make the connection. His solution was...

"One shortcut you can take when building floating shelves is using hollow-core doors for the shelves."

Well, sure: he found a couple of sources for his floating shelves, surprisingly both reputable (Ron Hazelton and the Family Handyman). Carson's problem? He concentrated on the "floating shelves" part while ignoring the "lots of books" part. One source, the one where he cribbed the hollow-core door "solution," even said, "they're not designed to hold your old set of Encyclopedia Britannicas."

Carson had real problems, though, in condensing and rewording the directions. Take, for instance, this step:

"Cut a 2-by-4 for each shelf that matches the inner dimensions of the panels. The boards will be the cleats that the shelves hang on."

You need some familiarity with woodworking to unpack that instruction... familiarity the wannabe sports agent seems to lack. His ignorance shows up again later, when he says,

"Drill 1/8-inch pilot holes through the cleats and into the studs. Drive a lag screw through each hole in the cleat and into the studs with a drill or adjustable wrench until the screw is tight."

We remain astonished that the entire staff of eHow was unaware that there were wrenches besides those darned adjustable wrenches. We're also a bit confused by anyone who thinks lag screws are available in 1/8-inch diameters... Finally, Carson tells his readers to,

"Drive 1-inch brad nails through the doors and into the studs every 8 inches. Again, you may want to recruit an assistant for this step."

Ummm, no, Carson, you want to nail the door to the cleat, not into the studs (which are no less than 16 inches on center, anyway). Oh, and "brad nail" is redundant, you amateur; you Dumbass of the Day.

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