do you have a masonry bit and anchors?

Use heavy duty wall anchors. I never pay attention to where the studs are when hanging things.

If your house has no studs then what is the drywall fastened to?

Emmarene - ? She's saying the studs aren't where they need to be for her shelves.

You could use concealed (aka blind or floating) shelf supports and then use the decorative brackets where they look good (or not at all).

If you're not putting a lot of weight on the shelf then the wall anchors should work.

But the furring strips instead of studs...yeah that's tricky!

"Just wanted to do some simple wood shelves in the kitchen got some nice iron brackets ... Would a shelf unit (24 inch wide x 42 high) be secure if attached to these pathetic excuses for a stud?"

If I have this right, you want to add shelves on brackets to a wall but are willing to do a bookcase-type thing instead? Also, you're dealing with plaster with metal or wood lath, and not sheetrock. Acknowledging that the stuff is brittle, is it sound? Plaster can be very strong if it's sound, uncracked, and the load is distributed well. I don't think the thin backing of bookcase type shelving will be much reinforcement for a good plaster wall.

Unless you plan to load the shelves up to a heavy point where you think the fasteners need to be in wood, I'd suggest you just attach the studs visually without regard to any wood backing. Spring-wing type toggle bolts will arguably give the best load spreading but with a very shallow wall cavity you have to be careful to keep your holes small and your bolts short.

I'm not home right now to take a photo, but I managed to mount an entire utility closet hanging system without ever hitting a stud. I used these things:

{{gwi:2142437}}

Here is a link that might be useful: drywall anchors

I am glad it worked. May we see a picture?

Since my open shelves in kitchen would be holding display-worthy china and stacks of plates.... need to be mounted VERRRRYYY SECURELY.

Re: the exterior wall with furring strips instead of real studs ... I wish there was some way of knowing whether these were actually attached to the exterior brick or not. Im thinking I may extend shelving unit down to counter and have it sitting or bolted to the counter, and also attached to the furring strip-thin studs on the wall to keep it from tipping??? Since the wall attachments won't be actually holding weight, it should be OK, no?

Will that look goofy to have shelves extending down to counter? Kinda lose some counterspace, visually, but.... some of the things that go on counter (eg toaster, etc.) can go onto the shelf I guess.

Would it be kind-of odd if the furring was not attached to the blocks ??
I mean ~ you attach the dry wall to the furring strips to hold the dry wall up..
Any way .. There are specialized bolts with sleeves to use when attaching to cinder blocks.

It's 100 yr old house w/ plaster and lathe - not drywall. Lots of odd inexplicable things galore - nothing can be assumed!

Hmmm are there long wall anchors at least 3 or 4 inches long that would go thru the 1 1/4 wood strips and then into the concrete?

Sorry I didn't read it was plaster...
I've only tried hanging on plaster once .
Big fail :)

You probably can get a good answer over at the "Old House Forum"

Here is a link that might be useful: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/oldhouse/

You can definitely rest the edge of the base of the shelves on the countertop without it looking weird, depending on the overall style of the place. In a 100 year old house I'm sure you can pull it off. Of course it won't be the simple shelf bracket installation you were after but it can look pretty nice, like a hutch type of thing.

I'd be tempted to look on CL for an old two-piece china hutch you can take the top from...maybe a little paint...that depends on the size you need of course.

The anchors I suggested will not work on lath and plaster.

And if you post on the Old House forum, whatever you do, make sure you spell it as "lath" without the e at the end. I spelled it wrong once over there there and was excoriated over it. OMG, I couldn't believe how spun up the guy was about it.

toggle bolts work well for plaster, drill the hole with progressively larger bits to keep the wall from cracking, and don't over tighten.

I know that this is an ancient post, but I have a solution that might be useful for anyone else that might come across this post. Wall anchors are an option, but not the best option. It won't take much weight at all to rip that shelf off the wall (and down come all your belongings!).

Wanna 10x your shelf strength? Try solid blocking. Blocking is the practice of placing horizontal wood pieces spanning between studs. If you place blocking behind your shelf, each hole in the bracket can be screwed into solid hardwood. EVERY. HOLE. IN. THE. BRACKET…. INSANE!!! I don’t mean to yell, but this method is BY FAR, the strongest way to install a floating shelf or floating mantel.

Here are a couple of blog posts that describe this and related topics in detail:

• DIY For Beginners Series: Choosing the right fasteners for your DIY floating shelf project
• Shelf Safety: How To Install Floating Shelves Safely and Securely
• How to Fix (& Prevent!) a Sagging Floating Shelf
• Floating Shelves 101: How to Hang Your Shelves Like a Boss