After searching high and low for a shelving unit that would suit my needs, I decided on Ikea’s “Fabian” wall shelf. For $7.99 you get a solid pine shelf and brackets. I planned on utilizing these as bookshelves, and I wanted them to be more stable. I ended up going to a lumber store and found a beautiful piece of rift-cut oak (it has a clean, striped appearance). They were happy to cut it for me.
Since I was mounting it on the same wall as a mirror of approximately the same size I wanted for the shelf unit, I decided to use those exact dimensions. I then stained the pieces with minwax tintable stain (I had it mixed at a Sherwin Williams store). I used 3″ cabinet screws to mount the panel to the wall, directly into 2 studs (I used painters tape to mark the studs above the panel, and just measured for each screw , and it worked great.
For a clean look I placed the screws where the shelves would later go, so they would cover them up. The last step was mounting the shelves using 1″ wood screws. This whole project cost about $80, but I think the final product looks very polished and unique.