Shelf Bracket

Shelf brackets, necessarily needed for providing support to shelves, can also be exploited for numerous affordable decorative ideas for the house. Yes, decorative shelf brackets made in steel or wood can easily be employed to get graceful and exclusively imaginative looks. Here are some ideas allowing you to their imaginative use for adding to the décor of your home without spending a fortune.

Use Shelf Brackets to Decorate Doorways

Affordable and impressive home décor ideas not only affect the decorating style but also the architecture of the room. Open doorways, separating a living room from a dining room or an entrance from a family room, can ideally be decorated with shelf brackets. Large decorative shelf brackets should be used for inexpensive home decor idea. Use liquid nails or some other strong adhesive to attach the shelf brackets on the top of the doorway on each side of the door, taking care that the brackets get flushed with the periphery of the doorway.

In case of wider doorways you’ll notice that the brackets cover only a part of the width of the doorway, but if you spend slightly more money on buying shelf brackets and fix them together back to back, they will fill the space. Generally, two or at the most three shelf brackets on each side of the doorway would suffice. You can further cut down on the cost of this inexpensive idea of home décor by attaching one bracket on each side in the middle of the doorway along its width.

Now, paint the pretty shelf brackets inserted in the doorway in a shade of color that matches with the color of the doorway (see the attached picture). This low-priced home decor idea gives the impression as if the entryway had curves in luxurious shapes at the top.

Use Shelf Brackets to Create Art Pedestals

You need not spend a lot of money to improve home décor. You can tastefully display pieces of art on inexpensive pedestals which not only add to the beauty of artistic pieces but also affects the environs of the room positively. You can easily exploit decorative shelf brackets for creating different types of art pedestals.

If you want to have a narrow art pedestal for displaying decorative glass, or a painting or metal ware, fix two shelf brackets back to back so that their flat surface gets aligned with the wall. I used this inexpensive decorative arrangement by using two shelf brackets in wood to get an art pedestal for the model of a sailing ship that you can view here. Likewise, for displaying a mirror encased in wrought iron you can use two brackets in metal, or display an attractive book using small wooden shelf brackets.

You can also make a bigger art pedestal for displaying larger sculptures and the like by installing a pair of hidden shelf brackets on the wall, keeping a distance smaller than the piece of art you may like to display. This idea of inexpensive home décor makes use of the shelf brackets for supporting the item, but as they are close to each other they go to form an attractive pedestal for you to display fine looking items.

Shelf Brackets for Architectural Decorating

If you have a large open passageway you can give it an exciting look by adding larger wooden shelf brackets. You may simply Google “Wooden Shelf Brackets” and view a wide range of eye-catching shelf brackets. You also have the option of visiting the lumber section of a good home improvement store. Fix a wooden shelf bracket on top of the passageway, one each on right and left corner, and on either side. That means you’ll require four brackets for each open passageway. Now, you paint the shelf brackets in the color of your wall. So, you can see how the inclusion of a couple of inexpensive shelf brackets can change the looks of the open passage.

Shelf Brackets to Secure a Heavy Decorative Mirror

Using hooks and a string at its back, you can hang a weighty ornamental kind of a mirror like a painting. As a precautionary measure it will be good to give it extra support under or around it. Shelf bracket solve the purpose very well. You can buy the required number of matching shelf brackets. In case the mirror is positioned on a mantelpiece, keep a pair of shelf brackets above the mantle and hang the mirror so that its weight rests on the shelf brackets and gets extra support. If you like to hang the mirror on a bare wall, encase it using shelf brackets, and press them closely in place so that they work as clasps for the mirror. It will be appropriate to employ wrought iron shelf brackets in case the mirror is enclosed in metal. Else, you may like using wooden shelf brackets, should you like to paint the brackets in the color of the wall.

Shelf Brackets to Form Miniature Shelves

You can attach attractive looking brackets to the wall on their sides, facing each other. This arrangement virtually results to having a small shelf that can best be used for displaying your possessions and add to the décor of the room. Decorative brackets in metal are best suited for this purpose. To provide added safety to the arrangement, it’ll be a smart idea to glue the area where the two meet together and thus have a one piece small shelf.

Shelf Brackets for Wall Displays

Shelf brackets are just perfect for mounting a variety of objects on the wall. Small photos, orchids, candleholders and figurines come to mind immediately. You may like to have a maritime display by mounting models of ships, giving the impression of sailing fleet. You may just suspend two shelf brackets for each item, maintaining some distance between them, as demanded by the size of the item that will occupy them. You get striking results, following this easy technique.

The basic function or design feature of a shelf bracket is to lend support to bearing weight of the shelf and its contents. Generally, brackets are designed to have an L shape, with one leg getting attached to the wall while the other is fixed to the overhead structure needing support. A bracket could be made of many materials and that include wood, metal and even stone. The choice of material used largely depends upon the weight it needs to support, lest it should get bent or even cracked due weight of the material it supports.

When looking for new brackets for your shelving units at home, you need to consider a few important factors:

1) How Many Shelves Are Being Installed?

You may have a shelving system with just one shelf to many more that may fit in the available area and design of the room. Next, you have to consider the items like books, tools and decorative pieces etc. to be accommodated in the shelves, and you may like to have some additional space for expansion too.

2) What Material Will the Shelves Be Made Of?

You get shelves made from metal, wood, glass or even plastic. The choice of material is especially important to consider for storing heavier items like books or domestic hardware. Shelves made from thinner materials are liable to bend and may even break depending on weight they are supporting. So choose an appropriate material such as metal or wood as per requirements.

3) How Many Brackets Will It Take?

That would largely depend upon the size of the shelf. Nevertheless, a good thumb rule is , the longer the shelf, the more is the number of brackets needed for each shelf. Shelves longer than 30 inches should ideally be provided 3 brackets. Unless adequate support is offered to longer shelves, they are sure to sag sooner than expected and may even break, again depending on the weight they bear.

4) Where Should They Be Installed

Shelf brackets necessarily need to be installed into a stud. If you mount a shelf bracket straight into drywall, it will get torn off the wall when you put weight over it. A stud finder is an easy to use inexpensive tool that you can find in any home hardware store and it’s worth having one at home all the time.
While installing brackets into a solid wall such as brick or concrete, make sure to use wall anchors. Installing these anchors into weak areas (such as mortar) will result to having the same problems as installing directly into drywall over time.

5) How Much Weight Can One Shelf Carry?

That would entirely depend on the material used for making the shelf and what it is going to carry. Normally, a glass shelf wouldn’t support more than 50 pounds whereas wooden and metallic shelves can bear weights varying from 200 to 400 pounds depending on thickness.

Solid brass shelf brackets provide the needed strength and durability and are available in a many ornate designs that add beauty to any shelving system. A bracket remains a focal point of design and an exclusive shelving bracket can convert a dull shelf into a pretty item in the home. You may have shelf brackets that match well with other existing scheme of things at home or even stand alone to get a new and exciting change from the run of the mill kind.

Almost every household has shelf brackets and one good reason for having these is that they generally come with striking looks. People visiting you place may not exactly notice or appreciate them but they do get a feel that your place has something nice and looking different. Any small investment in the form of labor or purchase of an item for the room certainly brings in a changed look to it and everybody likes to see changes. Consider even applying a fresh coat of paint on your old decorative shelf brackets and see the pleasant change it causes to the looks of your whole room.

While choosing a shelf bracket you have to be certain that it shouldn’t give looks of an “odd man out”, meaning that it should coordinate with the rest of the furniture and naturally blend with its style. Once you are able to take care of that aspect, it will give an exclusive new look to your room. They can be made from many materials including metals like iron, aluminum, chrome, wrought iron and wood or glass. It’s not unusual to have them in combination of two of these or more materials.

If you aren’t too sure of finding the decorative material for shelf, it will be good to understand how to match them with the surroundings. For instance, it’s hard to think of another material than glass if they were to be installed in a bathroom, that’s because f the moist and humid atmosphere there. As an extension of the same thought you may consider having them in cast iron for your formal dining area.

Buying them online is excellent. But, you need to have fairly good idea of what you are going to buy. You are sure to have many options. You should be sure of the size you like to have and that may demand taking some measurements. Price is also dependent on its size, as can be understandable. There is a very wide price range from less than a dollar to hundreds of dollars.

Metal Shelf Brackets

That shouldn’t remind you of those ugly looking pieces of metal assembled together, that ear is gone since long. Nor are they meant for only garages or just closets. Striking designs available these days will surprise you, just go on line and check some of them. They are beautifully designed by professionals and are so prompting that the viewer would wish to have one.

Apart from other metals, the shelf brackets made from iron are very good looking. You can have them in different varieties of iron itself. You have them in cast iron, the most popular form of iron, or they could be made of forged iron and wrought iron.

Glass Shelf Brackets

The modern decorated apartments find a perfect match in glass shelf brackets that provide a thru and thru view of the items displayed. They are so designed to give the impression of floating in the air and the items housed therein look very inviting.

Generally they find place in bathrooms or living rooms, but depending on the design and style of your dining place, you could certainly have them there. They offer a nice and quick way of dressing that area by housing a couple of your choicest photo frames.

Glass models are kept in place by using holders that come in many designs, and you have to be selective and choose one that enhances their beauty. One way of selecting the best holder would be to have a look at the manufacturers’ specifications.

You are aware of the characteristics of glass and glass shelving needs to be handled with care. They are light and have limited capacity to hold weights. Unless you are careful in handling them, they shatter and pose hazards.

Floating Shelf Brackets

Should you anticipate problems with wood shelf brackets or their installation, you best choice will be to go for floating shelf brackets! You can have amazing results with these. Their most striking feature is that they get installed in such a fashion that the supporting brackets are not visible to the onlooker. Of course they are delicate, but quite durable. Though you can keep almost any decorative item in them, it is desirable to conform to the manufacturer’s specifications for weight they can hold. Their designs are functional and looks are excellent. Additionally, they are made in many attractive colors and getting one to match the color scheme of your interiors poses no problems at all.