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Darkroom Furniture: Shelving
Contents
SummaryDesign
Tools
Materials
Construction
Summary
You can never have enough storage space in a darkroom! Trust me. In my current darkroom, I have put up wall cabinets for storage, but in my first darkroom there was not enough room, nor did I have the inclination for, cabinets, so I had shelves. I will probably put up a couple of shelves in my new darkroom too, one in particular I'm thinking about over the sink to hold graduates, etc. There are many different ways to put up shelving- L shaped wall mount brackets
- Metal vertical brackets
- Ceiling hanging brackets
- Whatever else you may have seen
Design
A 1x12 piece of wood, cut to the length needed, is screwed to an L bracket, and the L bracket is screwed into the wall (at a stud).Tools
- Screw driver - I prefer a drill with screwdriver bits
- Saw - I use a circular saw, and a circular saw guide,
- Paint brush
- Carpenters Level
Materials
- 1x12 lumber - in the length you need
- Paint - I used flat white latex enamel exterior house paint - how much depends on the size of the shelves - I used what was left over from painting the walls
- Screws - 3/4" long for the bracket to shelf connections, 2" long for the bracket to stud connections - I prefer drywall screws because they don't need pilot holes
- Sandpaper
Construction
- Measure for the length of the shelf
- Make sure there are studs where the shelf will go, I don't recommend attaching a shelf to drywall only, unless you don't intend to put anything on the shelf.
- Mark on the wall, where one of the studs is, where the bottom of the shell will be, with a pencil
- With a carpenters level, or straight-edge and level if the level is not long enough, mark the other studs you will attach to
- Attach the L brackets to the wall, so the top of the bracket is aligned with the pencil marks.
- Cut the shelf to length
- Put the shelf on top of the brackets, and screw it on
- Repeat for however many shelves you are putting up
