How Much Does It Cost To Put up Shelves?



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Cost Put up Shelves






Job
Description
Labour
1For the chap to buy the (soft) wood and fix half a dozen 200mm deep shelves into each alcove on either side of a chimney breast using dowels, leaving the painting and partial clearing of the room to you.  1 day 1 man
£200

Plus the timber for jobs 1 & 2
£60
2To buy and hang some brackets and fit the same shelves, or fix a shelf or two you have bought as self-assembly packs. 1man 1 day, including the brackets.
£275
3To build a simple MDF shelving unit in a chimney breast alcove, complete with a 2 door cupboard underneath. 1 man 2 days
£375

Plus materials etc. for the above
£100
4To apply 3 coats of acrylic paint to the above
 £220
5 To assemble and fix one of those floating IKEA shelves (these need to be done properly!)
 £50

“Labour” at £175 a day (tradesman) £100 (labourer), includes incidental fixings etc. and tipping charges. “Materials” if mentioned, are larger things (a boiler) and stuff only you can choose (tiles etc). Also VAT must be added all round

Information Sheet on Fitting and Replacing Shelves


Before you get a carpenter in, decide where you want the shelves, how many you want, how far apart vertically they should be, how long they should be, how deep you want them. This of course depends on what sort of ornamental gimcrack you are intending to put on them. Do you want him to paint them when he’s finished?

We are assuming here that they will be wooden, so what kind of wood do you want? Softwood (pine, redwood), hardwood (mahogany type), MDF, laminated plywood, laminated chipboard (sometimes called “contiboard”)

I say “mahogany type” hardwood because that’s what most people think of as hardwood. Actually though, oak and elm etc. are hardwoods, but they are expensive and a waste of time if you want the shelves painted.

If you want shelves over 250mm deep then use MDF, laminated ply or laminated chipboard. Softwood is only readily available up to 200mm wide and after that it gets very expensive. You won’t get hardwood unless you take out a mortgage. Laminated board is a bit fragile though and damages easily. If it gets wet, the laminate discolours and peels off and it looks like a pair of scuffed white high heels. Not quite the ticket for your genteel living room! Laminated ply is ok but the edges all need covering because the laminate only covers the top and bottom surfaces.

You may just go to “WickesBQ”, and buy pre made shelving. Please, don’t go near a timber yard asking to look at wood for shelves, they will pretend to be nice but they will hate you and will be sorely tempted to wave their arm expansively at the forest of timber stacked everywhere and tell you like you were a small child that its all for shelves!

So, how to hang them on the wall? If they’re going on either side of the chimney breast it’s possibly to simply plug the opposing walls with dowels, two at each end of each shelf and possibly one mid way on the back wall, and no one will see them. This only works if the shelf is no more than about 1 metre long and at least 18mm thick though.

If the shelves are just “free standing” against the wall, then brackets or a wooden frame will be necessary.

The best brackets are comprised of two vertical metal “U”sections about 25mm wide, screwed to the wall at the same height as each other and at a distance apart which is appropriate to the shelves’ length. Other smaller brackets are then hung wherever you want on these, allowing different depth shelves (if needed) with various vertical distances between them. This can then all be changed around as often as you want.

This system is more expensive than individual angle brackets but with only six screws holding up half a dozen shelves they save a heap of money in labour, they are versatile and they don’t sag.

Wooden frames are OK for the garage/shed but they are quite labour intensive as well and therefore expensive.

A complete shelving unit with a back and sides can be made of course. This can then be moved as you want. Obviously these can be bought far cheaper than having one made but if you want it to look special, or you want a specific size…

One last thing, make sure the “chippie” is 100% certain there are no cables or pipes in the wall before he drills even the tiniest little hole!

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