Arts-and-Crafts Cottage Bookcase
This classic Limbert design offers a unique twist on a traditional style
Synopsis: With glass doors, pierced panels with integral corbels, and eye-catching details, this bookcase is based on Charles Limbert’s No. 355 Cottage Bookcase. This project will provide a lot of storage space and plenty of authentic Arts and Crafts style.
I like to build in the Arts and Crafts style, and I usually design each piece from the ground up. But once in a great while, I stumble onto a design that cannot be improved. This was the case with Charles P. Limbert’s No. 355 Cottage Bookcase. With its glass doors and pierced panels featuring integral corbels, it’s a true gem among Arts and Crafts designs.
Start with the sides
The No. 355 is like three small bookcases in one. There is a main case behind the glass door, flanked by two side-facing banks of open shelves. These side assemblies are the place to start. I use a pair of routing templates to make the pierced panels: one for the shelf dadoes and a second for the edge profile and cutouts.
Start with the dadoes for the shelves. I elected to make a full-size template and rout the dadoes using a guide bushing. The finished dadoes are 5⁄8 in. wide, so I use a 1⁄2-in.-dia. straight bit to cut them in two passes. I mount a 3⁄4-in. guide bushing in the router that rides in 7⁄8-in.-wide slots in the template.
The next task is to rout the profile and the cutouts. I use a full-size template made from 1⁄2-in.-thick MDF that is longer than the workpiece. This extra length helps me to safely enter and exit the profile cut.
Use the template to mark the profile on the side panels. Then head over to the bandsaw and cut just outside the layout line. The two front panels receive the cutout, so you’ll need to drill a hole and rough out the shape with a jigsaw.
Next, clamp the template to the panel, and then clamp both to the workbench. Make sure the panel is accurately positioned on your layout marks, and trim it to shape with a router and flush-trimming bit. Because the grain direction changes along the profile, I use a 1⁄4-in.-dia. down-cut spiral bit, which is ideal for handling the details and inside curves. Move the router in a counterclockwise direction along the edge of the panel, and in a clockwise direction inside the cutout. Consider an oversize router baseplate for improved stability.
Now is a good time to circle back to the rabbets in the rear panels. These 1⁄2-in.- deep by 5⁄8-in.-wide rabbets receive the back of the center bookcase. Since the rabbets extend the entire length of the rear panel, they are easily handled with a dado blade at the tablesaw.
To view the entire article, please click the View PDF button below.
From Fine Woodworking #274
More on Finewoodworking.com:
- Video Workshop: Limbert Inspired Coffee Table with Kevin Rodel by Kevin Rodel
- Safe and Simple Arts and Crafts Finish by Jeff Jewitt #157–July/Aug 2002 Issue
- Video Series: Build a Classic Cherry Bookcase
Get the Plan
Click here to download the digital project plan.
Comments
I have been drooling to make one of these (wood just arrived first though to Mike P's chimney cupboard) so this would be after that.
Do you think the Limbert bookcase would look good in walnut?
A Limbert case would probably look good in walnut or cherry, but it's hard to imagine in anything but white oak. If you do use walnut, I'd avoid any sapwood. With many angled Limbert designs, I find sapwood quite distracting to the overall aesthetics of the piece.
What about chestnut? Limbert did build some pieces of furniture with it too.
When I view the PDF it says "To purchase expanded plans and a complete parts list for this Limbert-Style Bookcase and other
projects, go to FineWoodworking. com/PlanStore." I am not able to find the expanded plans.
Please put a call into customer service. They will quickly point you in the right direction.
The expanded plans are worth getting.
I called customer service and they said the plans are no longer available for purchase. Does anyone know where else I can get the plans for Limbert NO. 355 Bookcase?
We should have digital plans available. I've put the call in to get them back into the store. It might take a few days.
Great! Thank You
Can someone post the link to the digital plans in this thread?
I would like to purchase them.
Link to purchase the expanded plans: https://www.tauntonstore.com/limbert-style-bookcase-7248
To anyone who wants to make a glass-paned cabinet door, I heartily recommend the design for this door.
Sandry's design lets you make an attractive glass pane door without dealing with adhesives, putty, etc. After cutting a glass pane, you simply place the pane into a recess on the door's interior, formed by rabbets on the inside edges of the door rails, stiles and muntins (grills), and then attach simple wood stops against all four borders with a brad nailer to lock in the glass. No fuss, no mess. And if a pane should ever break, it's an easy replacement. Just pry out the stops, drop in a replacement pane, and re-attach the stops. Making this door requires no special skills beyond beginner/intermediate-level table saw operations and making haunched mortise and tenon joints, but you need to work carefully and precisely to make sure all the pieces line up right.
Also, although the door on Landy’s bookcase is a 2 column by 4 row grid, you can adapt this design to other sizes and configurations. The door on my cabinet is larger at 3 columns by 4 rows, and I used 3 hinges instead of 2. My door is 49” x 26” (compared to roughly 42” x 18” in the Arts and Crafts bookcase) and it’s very sturdy with no flex. I drawbored the mortise and tenons joints on the 4 corners with ¼” diameter dowels for a little extra strength.
Just finished a second hanging wall shelf in butternut, which takes on a most beautiful luster, feel and look after Mike P.'s shellac and wax/0000. Was wondering whether this Limbert bookcase might also look nice in b-nut. I can imagine bookmatching all the forward facing elements with an nice, 8/4 beaut. Almost a sin, such a wood, in Arts & Crafts? What say you?
-tonto
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