DIY: Wall-mounted book display shelf for my cookbooks

Pocket

I am extremely excited to share my new cookbook display shelf in my kitchen. We don’t have plenty of cabinets in our kitchen. I have been looking for a solution to place my cookbooks in a visible and easily reachable location instead of hiding them in a cabinet up high. After seeing a shelf similar to this in a photo on instagram, I set out to find it either to purchase or to make. I found All Things Heart and Home‘s Easy Book Display post and used it as a guide.
I love my cookbook display shelf. Now I pick a cookbook on the fly and decide on a menu for the next day or the week. I try new recipes more than ever. Before, I had to take them all down from the cabinet above the oven, set them on the counter or the table, put them all back when I was done. No more hassle.
Dimensions of my shelf are 31,5″ W x 40″ L

Materials

8 ft 1×4 pine or good quality wood x3 (you can consult a home improvement specialist in the store)
8 ft decorative trim (I ordered DecraMold trim online and picked up from Home Depot store)
3/8″ wooden dowels x3
Set of 4 L brackets
Wood Glue / Gorilla Glue
Wood screws
Kreg R3 pocket hole system (optional)
Stain or paint
Clear finish
Stud finder
Drill

Directions:

When you are purchasing your wood, ask them cut the pieces for you.

2 pieces of 40″ long
4 pieces of 30″ long
Decorative trim: 3 pieces of 31,5″ long

Put them together and mark where you are going to place the shelves. I placed them about every 12″.

Kreg R3 is a great system to drill invisible pocket holes. Your wood will be 3/4″thick. Set your drill length accordingly and drill two holes on each end of the shorter woods. The holes will look like this. Then put your shelf pieces together and screw the shelf body together.
Once the structure is put together, drill pockets to put the dowels in. Do not drill all the way. Dowels bend so you can flex them and place them in the pockets. You can secure the dowels with glue prior to sticking them in.
Here is the plain shelf. I put a dark chestnut color stain and clear finish on the wood to match the rest of the kitchen. I also painted words in handwriting with an old wall paint that we had at home using an art brush on the decorative trims. We glued the decorative trims on to the shelves with gorilla glue. Gorilla glue is very powerful, it expands so you have to scrape the glue expanding from the sides with a craft stick or something similar before it hardens.Once the shelf was complete, it was time to put it on the wall. It is easier and safer to attach the brackets on studs instead of dealing with wall plugs. Use a stud finder to find the studs. Mark the edges of the shelves on the stud. This was the before view of the wall in the kitchen. We put the L brackets to carry the shelves from 4 corners. Finally we inserted the shelf into the brackets and screwed it to the extending sides of the brackets.
Complete and installed book display shelf.