Building Shelves

TIMES INT'L

Hello…welcome back. In this installment, we will be looking at building a shelf. It’s a relatively easy, do-it yourself project, and a small job, that becomes a fixture in your home or office, that when completed you can look at with some measure of pride,  knowing that you did it yourself!
The spirit level will be your most handy tool here, because you need to make the shelf perfectly level. You don’t want stuff rolling off the shelf.
Tools and materials
1.    Hand drill and drill bits a size slightly smaller than the screws you want to use
2.    Wood screws or concrete plugs with screws if you are mounting on a concrete wall [make sure the screws are sufficiently long to get in firmly and take the weight off the items you want to put on the shelf]
3.    Brackets
4.    Spirit level
5.    Pencil
6.    Hammer
7.    Shelf material cut to size
Steps
1. The first thing you need to do is identify the area. Using the level, mark off the spot with the pencil for the first bracket and make sure you get a vertical line.
2. Decide on the height you want the shelf, and using the pencil, mark off the holes to drill, using a cross instead of a dot when marking.
3. Drill the holes, making sure you drill straight and not an angle and then tighten up the first bracket.
4. Lay the shelf on the bracket, and then put the spirit level on the shelf, position the second bracket roughly on spot and using the level, mark a horizontal line with the pencil for the shelf position. This is to make sure that the shelf is nice and level.  Remove the shelf.
5. Double check the line you drew for levelness with the level, draw a vertical for the last bracket and mount the bracket as before. Make sure that the distance between the brackets is enough that the shelf is stable.
6. If you want, secure the shelf on the bracket, check for final level with the level and there, you’re done.

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