Alpine Live Edge Wood Mantel Shelf Natural Brown - Alaterre Furniture

the shelf has 3 little black hooks on it that aren't visible in any of the product photos. also it's very heavy.

These shelves look great and feel well-built with quality wood. Once mounted, they work great. Read on for a recommendation on mounting that should make these a worthwhile purchase. I’ll preface this by saying I am not a professional, but I expect a lot of people buy these expecting to install them on their own. I had a hard time mounting these, but I’ll share my experience to make it easier. The shelves come with pre-installed mounting plates on the back, which are intended as a hidden mounting system. You put screws in studs or drywall anchors, then slide the plates onto the screws. These plates are unevenly spaced and sometimes not level with the shelf. Because of this, I found it enormously challenging to get the shelves level. If you decide to use this mounting, I at least recommend replacing the supplied anchors with something sturdier like molly bolts because the shelves are heavy (you won’t be able to mount completely on studs because of the inconsistent spacing of the mounting plates). My recommendation is to find studs in the wall, drill two pilot holes through the wood under the shelves with the same distance between the holes as the studs and the same distance from the shelf (so the shelf is level), and attach the shelf to the studs using sturdy screws. This will have visible screws (see the picture), but as I mentioned, getting the shelves level with the hidden mounting is basically impossible. This will also hold stronger. I think it’s worth it. One last note is that some shelves are quite a bit deeper than others. If you need the shelves to be a certain depth, you might need to return some.