Wall shelf mounting

A shelf for books, plants or kitchen spices, or one for the TV and a games console. Putting up a wall shelf seems simple until it starts to tip under the weight of books. How much a shelf can hold depends less on the shelf than on the wall and the fixings.

What the handyman does

• agrees the height and exact position with you, including relative to furniture and sockets;
• checks with a detector for cables or pipes in the wall;
• chooses plugs for the wall type: concrete, brick, hollow block or plasterboard;
• fixes the brackets or concealed hangers, levels the shelf and checks it is solid.

It is priced per shelf, so with several in one room it pays to book them all at once.

Floating shelves and heavy loads

Shelves with no visible brackets hang on rods set into the wall and into the shelf itself. They look great but need a solid wall and precise drilling: on unreinforced plasterboard such a shelf will not hold much. For long bookshelves, brackets every few tens of centimetres are a better choice. The shelf maker usually states a maximum load, which is a good guide for choosing fixings.

What to prepare

Have the shelves and their fixings ready. In the job, add a photo of the wall, say what it is made of and what will go on the shelves: a shelf for knick-knacks goes up differently from one for vinyl records.

Common questions