Floating Wall Shelf

For a square cabinet with tight joints, the top and bottom (A) and the back (B) must be exactly the same length. Here's how to ensure the best results. Adhere the over-length pieces for the top, bottom, and back face to face with small pieces of double-faced carpet tape. Keep the ends and one edge of each piece flush. Use a table saw to shave a thin slice off one end of the stack and then trim the other end to finished length. Separate the boards.

To cut grooves in the top (A) for the sliding doors (E), adjust the blade of your table saw to cut 7/16 inch deep. Position the rip fence 3/8 inch from the blade and cut a groove. Moving the rip fence away from the blade in small increments, make additional passes to widen the groove until the plywood for the doors slides easily in the groove. To accommodate paint on the case and the doors, the fit should be fairly loose. Reposition the rip fence 1 inch from the blade and cut a groove for the second door. Repeat to cut door grooves in the bottom (A), this time increasing the depth of the groove to 3/16 inch. Sand the bottoms of the grooves flat.

From a 1/4-inch x 2-inch x 2-inch piece of birch plywood, cut the doors (E) to size. To make inserting the doors in the grooves easy, sand along the top inside edge of each door. From a 36-inch x 1/4-inch x 1/4-inch square dowel, cut the handles (F) to length.

Apply glue to one end and one edge of the divider (C), and clamp it, centered, to the top and back. Make sure the divider is square to the back. Let the glue dry.

Apply glue to the edges of the back and divider, and once again place the back on the spacers and clamp the bottom (A) to the assembly with the ends of the back and bottom flush.

Cut 1-inch x 10-inch shims from tablet-back cardboard. Apply glue to the ends of the top, bottom, and back, and place the assembly on the shims on a flat surface. Clamp the ends (D) to the assembly with the front edges of the top, bottom, and ends flush. (Because the top/bottom/back/divider assembly rests on the shims, the upper and lower edges of the ends protrude beyond the outside surfaces of the top and bottom). When the glue is dry, use a sanding block and sandpaper to sand the edges of the ends perfectly flush with the top and bottom. Sand the front edges of the top, bottom, and sides flush and smooth. Sand slight bevels on all edges and corners.

Finish-sand the doors (E) and handles (F). Glue and clamp the handles to the doors.

To replicate our bar code-inspired pattern on the doors (E), cover the outside face of each door with painter's tape. Then use a crafts knife and a steel ruler to cut through the tape and create a stripe pattern. For the barcode effect, cut a variety of widths. To "hide" the white handles in the barcode pattern, make sure there is a 1/4-inch wide white stripe 1 inch from the opposing ends of each door. Also, paint the handles white except for the bottom surface, which you'll glue later.

Carefully peel back alternating tape strips. Burnish the edges of the remaining tape strips, pressing them tightly to the panels to prevent successive coats of paint from bleeding under them. To seal the edges of the strips and create super-crisp edges, spray on another coat of the white paint.

After drying for 24 hours, give the outside faces of the doors two coats of black spray paint. With the paint dry to the touch, remove the remaining tape. Let the doors dry for 24 hours.

Arrange the doors on your workbench with the top edges away from you and the 1/4-inch white stripes for the handles (F) at the left- and right-hand edges. Apply glue to the backs of the handles, and clamp them to the doors within the 1/4-inch wide white strips and with the bottom ends 3/8 inch from the bottom edges of the doors. Wipe away any excess glue with a damp cloth.