DIY, budget-friendly floating-look open shelves!

I knew I wanted to include open shelves in our kitchen because I loved them so much at our last house! We did very simple DIY wood + metal bracket open shelves at our last house, and installed them over tile. It was a DIY success, but they were never that exciting looking.

For this kitchen (lots of white, more elegant, less boho than our last) we wanted more presence to our open shelves. Thicker, stained wood. I looked into floating shelves, but because of our stud locations, we weren't co...