We documented different steps on different sides. Oh, and forgive the photos jumping between the pink and blue backsplashes. This left just enough of a mark on the tape that I could put the bracket back down for a while and drill a pilot hole right into the tile without the wood being in the way. We had already marked the stud locations with blue painters tape, so once we were happy with the height/level of the brackets (they’re about 18″ above the counter) I SLOWLY drilled through the wood using a small regular drill bit until I barely touched the tile. NOTE: If you want more details on these wooden brackets you see here, check out the steps in this floating shelf tutorial. Our process involves a lot of flattering poses like this one, which Sherry calls the “John-I-Need-You-To-Duck-So-I-Can-See-What-I’m-Looking-At.” This means not just your stud locations, but also making sure you’re happy with your shelf height, making sure things are level, etc. Mark Your Drilling Locationsĭrilling through tile isn’t a fast process, so take your time up front to be confident and accurate with where you need your holes. Or you may get lucky and your stud finder may work better with your particular tile (it often depends on the thickness of your tile). I know not everyone has photos like this, but facts like “studs are usually near outlets, windows, and corners” – or looking where other objects are screwed in (like your cabinets – throw open the doors and see where they screwed the backs into the wall studs!) can all help you zero in on the studs hiding behind your tile. I had already guessed there’d be studs near the wall outlets (since they typically nail those to the side of a stud) but this photo confirmed which side of the outlet we needed to drill into. From this particular picture I could identify the stud locations from the stripes of dried drywall mud (since you always mud over the screws that hold the drywall to the studs). Yep, I literally dug up old duplex progress photos on my phone to try to spot the studs. Those studs would help me secure the floating shelves on either end, but what about the middle? Well, that’s where pictures like this came in handy… This isn’t the kitchen shown below (it’s the adjacent laundry room), but you can see how many studs there are around the window and in some of the corners. For one, I knew that you’ll often hit a stud close to your corners and window/door frames. So to find those studs I relied on some basic knowledge of construction and some (dare I say brilliant?) detective work – much like you might have to do. And I had no luck getting my stud finder to work through the tile. Unluckily, this foresight struck me only AFTER finishing the first backsplash. Luckily, I had the foresight to find, measure, and record (aka email myself) the stud locations before tiling. You can use certain anchors in tile too, but we knew we’d rest easiest if all of the plates, glasses, etc in these kitchens were being supported by the studs behinds the walls. Your shelves will be the strongest if you can secure them into studs. So here’s how we did it: Locate Your Studs And now you can learn from our experience to make it go as smoothly as possible for you. It felt good to have a plan, plus we now found ourselves in the position many of you might find yourself in: hanging shelves over an existing tile backsplash. We decided to install a chunkier version of these DIY floating shelves that we built for our bonus room. Luckily tiling resolved our stalemate (I won’t bother you with who was right… but let’s just that person is very handsome and very humble). blue cabinets | white cabinets | tile | counters | pendant | faucet | hard w are | tall cutting board | walls: SW Spare White | trim: SW Extra White Which is why they looked like this when you first saw them. And since we were working up against a hard deadline for summer renters, we decided to plow ahead and revisit the discussion after the backsplashes were done. Buuuuuut Sherry and I weren’t seeing eye-to-eye about where to (or even *if* to) hang shelves in these kitchens. That would’ve made it easier to find studs and get a tight fit to the wall, not to mention saving us the worry of drilling into freshly laid tile. Ideally, we would’ve hung our shelf supports before tiling. wood cabinets | white cabinets | tile | counters | fridge | range | pendant | faucet | hardware | tall cutting board | walls: SW Spare White | trim: SW Extra White It took me way too long to share the shelf-building-tile-drilling details, but I’m finally laying it all out. Back when we shared the final duplex kitchens last May (and a full budget breakdown in October), I promised some more details on the DIY floating shelves and – in particular – how we drilled through the tile backsplash to hang them securely.
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