Wall shelves advice, please!

[MadameSapphire]

I need some wall shelves for books, etc. - goodness, wooden ones are more expensive than I thought they’d be! 😬 I’ve had a look at the IKEA Lack as an alternative but I’m not sure they’d hold the weight of lots of books. Any shelf gurus out there to advise an absolute novice?

Gentle, hopeful bump. 🤞🏼

I had Ikea Lack ones for cookbooks until recently, they were 10yrs old by the end and really showing their age! I'm not sure I'd recommend for hardbacks, but would be fine for paperbacks although not the most attractive.

Depends hugely on budget/ style and where you want to put them, really. For DCs' bedrooms we've used Elfa shelves (The Holding Company and A Place For Everything stock them in the UK) which have a simple wall track system. For our living room I'm saving up for Vitsoe which are a posher/more expensive version of the same idea.

For our new kitchen I'm repurposing old wooden upstands into shelves using brackets from Yesterhome.

If it's floating shelves you want, you can get paintable ones from Shelf Direct (found online via Google but not bought from them). These will look much nicer than the Ikea ones.

Major caveat is the type of wall you want to fix them to - a brick/load-bearing wall is a much better bet for holding up heavy bookshelves than a stud wall, unless you can find the joists and use those for your fixings, but this is complicated! Also watch out for drilling into electrical wires.

I've got hundreds of books and have used my trusty Ikea Billy for years now in multiple homes. I've got extension units on the top so they are floor to ceiling and there are amazing hacks online if you Pinterest. You can add coving and make them look like expensive build in shelves.

I’ve had bad experiences with Lack shelves twice now. Years ago when a student one I kept my textbooks on took chunks of the brickwork down with it when it fell off!

We have a few Billy bookcases that have even moved house a few times and still sturdy.

I’m going to try some steel bracket and scaffold plank ones next, they look like they should be sturdier then a true floating shelf but have a similar look. Can’t work out a link as I’m looking on the app but if you search “scaffold shelf” on Etsy loads come up.

Thanks so much - this is all very helpful indeed! @Zinnia, we’ve recently moved and am actually looking for shelving/decor throughout. This is for a home office wall (and definitely needs to hold books). Must check wall type, thank you...!

@KeirStarmerisMarkDarcy, ooh, this is interesting! I wonder if I could create my own extensive shelving with Billys... please do share pics or favourite hacks for inspiration if you have any! 😀

Thanks @LemonViolet, think I’ll avoid the Lack. Have found some lovely wooden shelves on Etsy, but I need quite wide, deep shelves and the price really mounts up...

Ikea Ivar shelves are much better. Unfinished so can be painted, varnished or whatever

@MadameSapphire some examples here:

www.11magnolialane.com/built-in-bookshelves-from-ikea-billy-bookcases-how-to-do-it/

thesommerhome.com/billy-bookcase-hack-tutorial/

abeautifulmess.com/built-in-ikea-billy-bookcase-hack/

www.livingetc.com/ideas/Ikea-billy-bookcase-hacks

Sorry there are 4 links there but it looks like 2 ^^