A Quick Stress Panel Approach

[John TenEyck]

A friend asked me to build some corner wall shelves for his son's room for him to store/display his small toys. He wanted a simple, clean look with no brackets, just the shelves floating on the walls. That made a stress panel seem like the best approach. I've built stress panels with wooden grids in the past but they take substantial time to construct so to keep the cost down I decide to use foam panels instead. That also allowed me to use 1/4" plywood which is actually less than 3/16" these days and so flimsy it would never look flat only supported on a grid system. I would have had to have used 1/2" plywood with a wooden grid, driving up the cost and weight.

After cutting the 1-1/2" thick pink foam to size I calibrated the thickness by running them through my drum sander, which works really well with it. The edges of the shelves are made from pieces of poplar with a rabbet cut on both edges to cover the edges of the plywood, and mitered at the corners. I attached the poplar edging to one piece of plywood first using glue and pin nails. when that was dry I assembled the panel like this.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ACtC-3cFRJMDzp9US-QZ2lh0Pao4bvgNXP32O8ipRRmPGrkjRo8vv3CrWG7LIYGmBlyM j6VmB1rWdYS1oHRzEC1N47TKl6Y-OqjwE61gIpu2bEwMdPltV6bOKk-lsa8O71kTafxrdNVWbza3SjnYDGn9AwJmdA=w1113-h626-no?authuser=0

Gorilla Glue sticks great to insulating foam. I used yellow glue to hold the plywood to the poplar edging. The space at the back of the shelf is where it will fit over a wooden ledger first screwed to the walls. I was going to do the glue up in a vacuum bag but decided it would be easier with some cauls and clamps since I didn't need much force as I'm dealing with foam.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ACtC-3fSJGS_--7xwvOHMUeuZ6ub46sbuTpYxct0NsWM8gsi4ZtmPv1eXCA7V73a s_CyXmES5vTY08nAGX2QzsJXCM8vl0ipgc7Y3_1aZb3aTctaR1 _w-igqwi3yimE5AoPCbnHTn4IvYue8UDf3zmZRl4GU1A=w1113-h626-no?authuser=0

After painting and installation the shelves look like this:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ACtC-3dl1OHGcGruPalD3HhXV8PWSccn4fdo2DRZDGQln2OI-sCsHz_VyabLHhsVaaEj0TvuJ0VN5-ftMGF0Zqdlb74HYmtaROUiejINuVB6Faqk0LZf7z0QSC0RzFtw RKPWh_mC9koZyv_t52HsWCAFbKllYQ=w1113-h626-no?authuser=0

I also made a hanging wall desk, but used a more conventional approach for that. The walls were so curved and out of plumb that it took a lot of scribing and work with a belt sander to get the desk to fit well to the walls.

I got this photo a few hours later. I guess his boy likes them.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ACtC-3ej2vmuJbwnIPf6UegMcofuP-dcnA-Un-wlEVOVmaAtiV8ZgrrSKJxcW6yagdf9w48DD8JcGw7fRZ2r1kHc PS9SICE8zwtxYhMW3NEBiFqPBtx_k2RjxGj4zQaLHqhVDWx0T2 FiUmbpJOZtsDX1mUrMHg=w470-h626-no?authuser=0

John

[David Lageman]

That's ingenious...would have never thought of that! Great job and they turned out great. You're a very good friend!

[Jim Becker]

I really like that construction idea, John. Effectively strong, yet lighter in weight.

[Patrick McCarthy]

John, nicely done. I like every aspect of it. Great job, sir.

[michael langman]

Those shelves and desk came out great John. You used some really good ideas and saved your friend some money too. Thanks for posting.

[John TenEyck]

Thanks everyone. My friend is an arborist and I occasionally get logs from him. Building these shelves for just the cost of the materials was a way to "pay" for some of those logs. He texted me a day or so later to tell me his other son wants some for his room, too. The extra piece of foam I bought by mistake just found a purpose.

John

[Mike Henderson]

Those look great, John. That was a very creative idea to use the foam. How did you attach them to the wall. Did you use those things that look like rods and stick them into the shelves?

Mike

[You were lucky the walls were square. Not true in all houses. But maybe you checked that before you built.]

[Frederick Skelly]

That's clever and the result is delightful!

[Mark Rainey]

I am surprised at how good they turned out - they are a real space saver - a definite advantage to a boy's room that can easily clutter.

[John TenEyck]

Those look great, John. That was a very creative idea to use the foam. How did you attach them to the wall. Did you use those things that look like rods and stick them into the shelves?

Mike

[You were lucky the walls were square. Not true in all houses. But maybe you checked that before you built.]


Mike, the corner allows for an easy approach. I screwed 1" thick ledgers to the studs on both walls. They were sized to fit snugly in the back of the shelves. Because he might want to take them down some day, I held them in place with a few screws through the top of the shelves. For a permanent installation I would have glued them to the ledgers and shot a few pin nails from the top to hold them while it dried.

You can carry pretty heavy loads with this same approach with a floating shelf on just one wall if you make the panel thicker. As long as the ledger is securely screwed to the studs the load capacity is related to the square of the shelf thickness and inversely to it's depth.

The walls were no where close to square or plumb. The house was built in the early 1800's. Some of the construction methods used were bizarre; like a masonary chimney supported by the second floor. It's had several poorly done renovations, one where a main floor beam terminates in space on one end. My friend will never be able to finish all the work that it needs. For my part, I took one of the desk panels over and we scribed it to the wall before I built the rest of it. Those scribe lines looked like a topographic map. I still had to do a bunch of adjustment because I didn't notice that the short wall wasn't close to plumb so when we put the assembled desk up the bottom met the wall before the top. The walls were better up higher but still required fitting. A belt sander is your best friend for scribing work.

John

[Joe A Faulkner]

These look great. Nice work. I suspect you will be getting some referrals.

[Charlie Jones]

Nice work. I am sure he will enjoy having them.

[Stan Calow]

Brilliant idea to use the foam.