How-to tutorial on how to make industrial farmhouse wood floating shelves with pipe brackets and a DIY toilet paper holder using plumbing pipes found at the hardware store.
After I posted my master bathroom makeover reveal post, many of you asked for a detailed explanation on how to make the floating shelves and brackets and the toilet paper holder.
First of all the shelves and toilet paper holder are created using plumbing pipe pieces you can find at any hardware store. The only thing is since these are heavy duty plumbing pieces they aren’t really cheap. I was able to find a different source for a few of the pieces to help reduce my cost.
These the pipe pieces you will need for each pipe bracket and each shelf requires 2 pipe brackets:
- 1 – black iron floor flange (1/2 inch)
- 1 – 1/2 inch iron cap
- 1 – pipe the length of the width of your board. My board was 8 inches wide so I used a 8 inch by 1/2 inch pipe.
- screws
So for 2 shelves I bought 4 of each piece listed above.
I linked all those above at Home Depot so you can see them online or even order online. I was able to cut cost a bit by buying the floor flanges at Hobby Lobby – they are $3.99 each there and go on sale for 1/2 off when the cabinet pulls/hardware are on sale (found on the same aisle as all the knobs/hardware). So I got them for $1.99 each instead of $4.98 at Home Depot. Hobby Lobby also carries the cap for $2.99 so 1/2 off makes $1.49 each instead of $1.60 at Home Depot. Hobby Lobby does carry pipes but only in the 6 and 12 inch length which was not the right size for me.
To install the shelves you will need to mark preferably in a stud (if not use heavy duty wall anchors) where you will place your floor flange for each side of the shelf. It helps to screw all the pipe pieces together and either use the board or a long level to make sure everything is level and mark all your holes through the floor flange holes before you install. Then you can unscrew the pipes and just work on screwing in the floor flange into the wall. Once both floor flanges are installed, you can then screw the pipes and caps into the flange and place your shelf on top! That’s it!
For the shelf board I used a 2x8x8 pine board which I cut to the length I needed and stained with Varathane Dark Walnut Classic Stain.
If you are worried about the board moving and want to add extra stability, you could put a conduit strap around each pipe and screw into the bottom of the shelf. You would have to paint them black to match the pipe hardware.
Now for the toilet paper holder!
You will need all of the same pipe pieces used plus one additional elbow piece to make the toilet paper holder:
-
- 1 – 1/2 inch floor flange
- 1 – 5 inch 1/2 inch black steel pipe
- 1 – 1/2 inch cap
- 1 – 1/2 inch elbow
- screws
I used a scrap piece of 1×6 inch board for the back portion – cut to size and stained with Varathane Dark Walnut Classic Stain.
I screwed the board into the wall making sure one screw placement would land under the floor flange. Then I screwed the floor flange to the board and then screwed all the pipe pieces together. I will say that if you buy the 2 rolls on 1 roll super big rolls of toilet paper this will probably not work well. Not sure if there is another extension pipe piece you can buy to make the pipe be farther away from the board but a regular roll of toilet paper fits fine.
I love the industrial rustic look of this toilet paper holder!
I hope that answered your questions on how to make these shelf brackets using pipe pieces! These shelves have a very industrial farmhouse look which is popular right now and also make easy floating shelf brackets.
These wood shelves look awesome! Unfortunately, I’ve got two left hands. I’d have never managed to make them myself.