I was looking through "Design Your Own Furniture" by Jim Stack and I encountered a shelf that I thought looked nice. It is made from two pieces hung on a wall. Each piece is like the letter "U", turned sideways, so the total shelf looked like this (use fixed width font):
. ----------------- . | . ----------- | . | | . | ------------- . | . -----------------
I have posted a picture scanned from the book for clarification at
Close inspection of the picture makes it look like a very simple design. Each piece looks to be made of say 5" wide 3/4" thick material, mitered together at the corners. Looks like it might be five feet long. The look is very clean: no supporting structure is visible to hold thing thing to the wall, just three pieces of wood for each half sticking to the wall.
When I saw it I thought "I need one of those. Looks simple enough..." But after thinking a bit more I realized I don't know how to hang it on the wall. I thought of putting screws through it at an angle into the wall, which seems ugly but might work. Maybe sideways keyholes on the back? But it seems like it would be hard to get it tight to the wall, and the weight would be borne by a thin bit of wood around the keyhole. Also, if the hardware has to be positioned in the wall to match holes in the back of the shelf, it seems like that hardware would have to be positioned in the wall with unrealistic accuracy to avoid stressing those joints. Anyone have any insight on a good way to hang a shelf like this?