Concrete Floating Shelves

I have a friend who is a general contractor, and has mad concrete skills, so…

He built these:

Yep. No need to check your vision, those are bona fide, 100% awesome, true-blue floating concrete shelves. Pinch me!

B-b-b-but, where are the brackets? I know. Seriously genius.

They’re in the walls. And they’re in the shelves.

Man, oh man. Once I decided on concrete kitchen counter tops, I wanted matching concrete floating shelves. Without brackets.

I wanted that clean, unified look of a shelf just floating on the wall.

Turns out, that’s quite a feat if you have concrete shelves. I don’t know, something about concrete being heavy…

But, like I said earlier, I have this friend who’s a GC, and just so happens to be a bad-ass when it comes to concrete. He’s also the most skilled drywall master I have ever had the pleasure of doing business with.

So, with a bit of ingenuity, and the aforementioned mad skills, he created the shelves in his shop:

See those steel brackets? Unbendable, sturdy beasts.

And then he did this to the walls:

This is a guy who understands building at its core.

He reinforced the walls, and mounted these suckers to the studs. No question, these are not going anywhere. Period.

Then he covered them in drywall:

The shelves on the right are almost 4′ feet long, 11” deep, and 1.5” thick. There are two of them, and they are ridiculously heavy.

The thing about concrete is that it continues to harden over time, actually getting denser and requires lasting support. And they still had to hold up the weight of my plates and bowls.

No problem. Bring it on.

I love that I can see my serving dishes, and that they’re always in arm’s reach. This makes my kitchen work flow smooth and easy. 

What do you think? Open shelves or cabinets? Concrete or something else? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Credits:
Kitchen remodel and awesome concrete floating shelves: Nelson Construction