How to put up shelves
For those who do not have much or any experience with DIY, putting up shelves is a good place to start because you don’t need any special skills and you don’t need lots of tools.
Once you have decided where your shelves are going to go you need to make sure there are no electrical cables or pipes in the plaster work, you can use a pipe and cable detector to do this. Now you need a couple of cavity wall plugs, these depend on what weight the shelves are and what weight they will be holding. For shelves that are light and only will hold light objects you need to use a screw and toggle fixing this draws the metal toggle against the inside of the cavity. For shelves that are medium to heavy you will have to have them supported with brackets that are fixed directly to the wooden studwork behind the plasterboard. To find the wooden studs behind plasterboard you can use a stud detector or if you don’t have one of those you can alternatively tap the wall with your knuckles nd listen for a duller sound this indicates the position of the studs.
Once you have your screws and plugs or brackets sorted out you can mark the positions of your shelves, to do this mark the heights of where the shelves are to be held, then hold a spirit level at each spot to mark the positions of the fixing brackets. Tip: To stop shelves from sagging, make sure the brackets are no more than 600mm apart. Once your holes are marked and level, you then need to use a masonry drill bit which needs to match the wall plug fixing size and drill into the wall, to the depth of the wall plug. Use a screwdriver to fix the brackets to the wall and make sure the screws firmly fit. If your shelves do not clip into the fixing brackets you will need to attach them with screws or panel pins so that the loaded shelves cannot tip forward in use.
Once the shelves are secured to the wall you are ready to start using them.
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