Placing chests on shelves has been a problem for months now. Fortunately, there’s a trick I’ve been using and I’ve just confirmed that it still works in the latest update. @droch-aon described it in words, so here are some pics to illustrate and corroborate it.
First, you place a chest on the floor:
Then you place a shelf on top of that chest and another chest on top of the shelf:
Then you can remove the bottom chest and the top chest remains on the shelf:
Basically, the shelf is capable of providing stability to the chest once it’s placed, but for some reason doesn’t let you place it. You can use this to trick the game into letting you place it.
If you need the shelf to be higher than that, just keep repeating the process until it’s as high as you want it:
I hope that helps.