I just love the show Fixer Upper and dream to have my kitchen look like Joanna Gaines kitchen. I still have some work to do, and I don’t live in a farmhouse…. so I may never get there…. but I already used an antique hutch as a kitchen island (see here), and so my next step was the floating wood shelves. I took off two sets of upper cabinets that were on either side of the window. I also added a subway tile backsplash up the entire wall. The first thing I did when making the shelves was to build a frame. I wanted my shelves to be thin, so they are just over 2 inches thick. I think if I were to do it all over again, I would make them thicker-it’s just easier to drill holes and make it more stable when it’s thicker. However, I think these are perfectly stable and will hold up to their task of holding dishes and plates. 
This is what the frame looks like. I used common board to make it. I planned to cover the top and bottom with 1/4 plywood so notice that the middle pieces of wood are 1/4 thinner on top and bottom, this is so the plywood will sit right inside the frame.
I used these sinkers on the left for the areas without a stud, and the cabinet screws in to the studs. For each shelf, there is at least one cabinet screw in a stud. My husband used this drill bit to cut through the tile-I think it was easier than he thought it would be.
Then insert the sinkers.
And then attach the shelf-my husband did all the tough work of making sure the holes lined up and that the shelves were level-I think I’m too impatient to do things like that, so I leave it up to him. 
Use wood glue and trim nails to attach the 1/4 plywood on top and bottom and the front trim piece. Fill any holes with stainable wood filler. 
After sanding down the wood filler, I used Minwax Jacobean stain on them. And then a satin polyurethene.
I just love the way they turned out!