Plate display shelf

[Steve Ash]

My mother in law asked me to build her 3 shelfs to display her collector plates. She wants to put the shelves up on her kitchen soffits which extend down 12 " from the ceiling, so they need to be pretty slim. I did a search on this forum to see if anyone had done one and see some pics to get some ideas....I couldn't find any. Does anyone have any pics of something they have or have done that I could get some ideas from? I'm sure a simple shelf would make her happy but I was looking for something a bit more decorative. Any help is greatly appreciated and Thanks in advance.

[Norman Hitt]

My mother in law asked me to build her 3 shelfs to display her collector plates. She wants to put the shelves up on her kitchen soffits which extend down 12 " from the ceiling, so they need to be pretty slim. I did a search on this forum to see if anyone had done one and see some pics to get some ideas....I couldn't find any. Does anyone have any pics of something they have or have done that I could get some ideas from? I'm sure a simple shelf would make her happy but I was looking for something a bit more decorative. Any help is greatly appreciated and Thanks in advance.

Steve, I don't have any pictures, but those were very popular in Europe when I lived there, and especially over in Switzerland for both plates, and other items. The two most popular styles I saw were with white walls and a white shelf, of the no visible connector , (torsion box style), about 1 3/4" thick, and the other was white walls and a blond natural finished oak 1" thick with either two to four oak (same finish) large shelf brackets underneath on each wall. The support brackets were approx 1" thick x 5" to 7" (across top & back side) of the bracket, with an ogee type curve on the front,(hypotenuse leg of the bracket triangle). The shelves ranged in width from about 6" to 10" wide with the front edge rounded over on the top with about a 1/4" roundover, and a few had a bead under the bottom of the front edge of the shelf. All the oak supports had both front edges rounded over.

Another nice treatment is a shelf using a crown moulding underneath the front and wrapped around under the ends if the shelves didn't go all the way to the wall at the ends. This type of shelf can be made with the shelf only slightly overhanging the Crown moulding or as much as a 3" overhang with good effect. The use of this type, however will depend on whether the tops of door/window openings, etc. would interfere or not, with either the looks or installation itself.

Hope this helps.