This is a first for me so be kind! My wife and I recently moved into a new custom home. I justified a 19×26 workshop by telling her I would build the built in bookshelves for her den among other pieces of furniture on her wish list.
My question is: The den wall is 10 ft tall by 12 ft long. I want to build painted shelves (her preference) using solid core 3/4″ plywood with a face frame and use biscuit joinery as outlined in Fine Woodworking last month. How can I best achieve the most efficient use of the 4×8 sheets of plywood and still design a case that is aesthetically pleasing and will not sag in the middle of the shelves from heavy books. How many fixed shelves should I use? Should the shelves or boxes be equal in all cases. What type of shelf supports should I use- Drilled holes for pins or metal support strips? How many cases should I use?- 3 across 4′ long 8′ tall or 4 across 3′ long 8 ft tall, etc. The cases will go to the ceiling so I will stack a second set of cases on the first depending on the size of the bottom case. The shelves will not have closed cabinets on the bottom. The complete wall will be shelves. I feel confident with the construction techniques, but am lacking in the design aspect of the project. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks much for any help! Bruce.
Replies
I think it was the last issue of FWW that covered built-ins and it maybe worth a read over. With that said what is the plan for these shelves. Are they going to be used to store books or decorations and the sort. Second have you looked at MDF for the bulk of the construction. It is easy to work with can be shaped easily and takes paint with almost perfection. As for the over all design check out this issue of FWW for a article on design it is a good read.
Scott C. Frankland
Scott's WOODWORKING Website
"This all could have been prevented if their parents had just used birth control"
Thanks for your note. I think I am going to stay with plywood for strength. I have received some great comments on construction. My big thing is design. I am concerned about a wall full of shelves all the same!
Bruce here is a built in that I am working on now. It is 9' wide by 7' tall, the bookcase is 16" deep the desk is 24" and the upper cabinet is 12". The whole project was done with 3 sheets of 3/4" oak ply, 1 sheet of 1/4" ply and 40BF of oak lumber. This has to be the easiest job ever as I am building it next door. When ever I need to measure or fit something than I run back and forth and tonight when I was installing the molding I just ran the air house over to his basement window.Scott C. Frankland
Scott's WOODWORKING Website"He who has the most tools may not win the race of life but he will sure make his wife look like a good catch when she goes to move on."
Oh yes forgot the whole thing was built in my shop in four different pieces and then assembled at his place.Scott C. Frankland
Scott's WOODWORKING Website"He who has the most tools may not win the race of life but he will sure make his wife look like a good catch when she goes to move on."
Wow -- that's a lot of quesstions. By the way, congratulations on winning the shop discussions with your DW.
To make the best use of the space, you should first start with pencil and paper. Using your DW as a major resource, draw some quick concept drawings. As the concepts get narrowed down, draw them using better techniques (ever take any drafting classes? maybe some graphic design?).
Once you have the drawings, most of your questions will be answered. But note -- if the shelves are to be used for books, you'll need to be extra-careful to make them strong enough. Books are extremely heavy, and shelf design is critical.
See http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator.htm That site will give you a good idea of what it might take. But you will certainly want to use solid wood edging, both for strength, and for aesthetics.
As for the shelf pins, I prefer drilled holes and pins, rather than the metal standards. They're just a lot more pleasing to my eye. But, it really is a matter of personal taste.
Try to plan some sort of base -- perhaps one that will match the profile of the baseboards in the house. This gets the bottom shelf off of the floor, and is much more pleasing visually. And while you are in the drawing stage, play around with some top treatments. These could match the crown molding if you have any -- or could be a combination of crwon and dentil milding -- or maybe something with a country look if that fits your taste.
And you should plan to anchor the shelves to the wall. It would be a real shame if we had to read a post from your wife, telling of the tradegy in which you were crushed by your own creation.
Good luck -- and post some pictures when you're done.
Bruce,
I just put in built-in bookshelves/cabinets in my dining room and painted them a semi-gloss white. I will attach a picture in a later post as soon as I track one down. My space was 18" deep, 9 1/2 feet tall and 10 feet wide. I opted for 3 bookcases on top of 3 cabinets.
I used 3/4" birch veneered plywood and put 3/4" thick solid birch fronts on the shelves to keep them from bowing. I attach the fronts with biscuit joinery as you suggest. You could also run a solid birch front along the back as well to add extra support, but I thought that was overkill in my case. Since these were placed on top of cabinets, I used a middle fixed shelf inserted into a dado. The top of the bookcase was attached using a rabbeted edge. For yours, I would suggest a bottom fixed shelf as well. I didn't because it wouldn't have looked right sitting on top of the cabinets.
I also ran a dado on the inside of each bookcase side so that I could slide a 1/4" sheet of birch veneered plywood for the back of the bookcase. This gives the case rigidity as well. Also, the case will get additional rigidity from being fixed to the side walls (if that option is available). I finish nailed the back into the fixed shelves.
For shelf supports, I used brass inserts in the holes with matching brass paddles. Check Lee Valley's catalog. They are about a dime apiece but the additional cost makes the project look that much better. Plus, your holes will not crush out over time. I didn't drill holes continuously up the side but made five holes an inch apart about every 12 inches. Depends on what you want to put on the shelves really.
If you are indifferent between 4 bookcases or 3, I'd go with 4 since your shelf width will be shorter which will give you a stronger shelf over time.
I'll try to attach some pictures in a later post.
As a design consideration, if you can vary the depth and height of the bookcases, they will not appear as imposing as a set of uniform depth and height. For example, if you have four bookcases you might make the middle two 6" to 8" higher than the outer ones and 4" to 6" deeper.
If going for the painted look, don't be too quick to use standard latex paint. It has a tendency for "blocking" which means that objects left on the shelves for example will eventually stick to the paint. I don't know if 100% acrylic paint shares this unfortunate characteristic. I've never heard that good oil paint has this problem, but of course oil paint requires solvent for cleanup.
A set of bookcases built several years ago had a simple 1x4 for top molding, but the back panel was 3/4" plywood securely glued in a rabbet on the side panels, and continued the back up as high as the 1x4 top molding. Then I ran stout lag screws through the top of the back panel into the studs in the wall. The screws were not visible and the bookcases could not fall forward. Just another idea for consideration.
I think 4' across is too long of a span and you would be risking some sagging. 3' across is probably the farthest you want to go, but it is not exactly efficient from a piece of plywood's standpoint. Once you rip your plywood for the horizontal pieces (tops and bottoms of cases plus the shelves), you would only get two pieces per strip and then you would have a worthless 2' section leftover. If you were to subdivide your space into 5 sections, at a little less than 2-1/2' across each, you will then get 3 horizontal pieces per strip and get a lot less waste. You can also subdivide into 6 sections of 2' across each, and then you can get 4 horizontal pieces per strip with almost zero waste. This layout is the most efficient, but it might prove too busy. You (and your wife) be the judge by drawing it to scale and seeing how it looks.
Bruce,
With 10' high ceilings you've accepted that the best design will include two stacked units...a lower base unit and a taller upper unit.
Although you want uniformity for the depth of the units as a whole, for aesthetics, consider making the lower unit slightly deeper than the upper. The added depth will hold larger books, as well as deep photo albums, or maybe even a few decorative items. A 16" deep lower unit will make good use of sheet goods...three 8' by 16" rips per sheet. The height is up to you...if the house's baseboard (ex: 6") is carried across the front of the built-in unit, then add in the rough height for two shelves in the base unit (ex: bottom 14", top 11"), you can design an approximately 32" high base unit. 32" high will give you three cross cuts from each 16" by 96" long rip that you got from the 4' by 8' sheet.
With the bottoms being 32" high, the tops will be about 88" high, slightly less than tht length of a sheet of ply. Still, consider shrinking the upper useable space on the uppers a bit so you can carry the crown molding in the room across the front of the bookcases.
An alternative would be one vertical opening on the bottom unit (no horizontal shelves to divide the bottom opening), and have the bottom unit about 24" high. then the opening on the bottom could be made 14-16" high.
Obviously, all dimensions are rough, you'll have to fine tune and add in board thickness, face frame widths, etc, etc...and you can fudge a few inches here and there to suit your taste.
For the uppers, drop the depth down to a rough 12". This will allow four 12" rips per sheet. Obviously, you'll lose a bit of depth when you add a bacxk to the carcass, you;l gain a bit back when you add the face frame.
As to how many carcasses across the 12 length of the wall, I prefer odd numbers of units to even numbers. It allows a center unit flanked by others, I simply think it looks better.
The widest unit will be dictated by shelf sag. If you consider 5 units with the center shelfs at approximately 36" wide, the side shelf units will be approx 24" wide. The other 12" will be eaten up by the thickness of the carcass walls between the units, as well as a few inches at each end for a trim piece where the outside carcasses meet the room's side walls. Again, shelves 3' long and 2' long are easily accomodated by 8' long sheet goods.
!!--2'--!!--2'--!!---3'---!!--2'--!!--2'--!!
After building the base, if you decide to built each upper carcass separately, think of adding a half-inch spacer between adjacent carcasses. This will result in a 2" face frame on the front, it'll add a bit of visual meat. Carry the lines from the upper through the base to unify.
As to the number of shelves, that depends. Design to suit your tastes, as well as the books you'll stock. Graduated usable heights from 14" high on the bottom shelf to 10" or 11" at the upper should suffice. Don't forget to add in the dimension of the shelf edging added to the shelf when figuring the usable height between two shelves.
Do as others have recommended...draw it out on graph paper, get it prettty close to scale. Then make cut lists for all pieces in the project, to make best and most efficient use of your stock. When you make your drawings, draw in the dadoes/rabbets to allow you to visualize the carcass joinery...as well as to have the pictoral of the joinery to remind you to add the extra length to those pieces that will slide into the dadoes and rabbets, etc.
I'll second oil over latex paint, along with the recommendation to gve the first coat of paint a couple extra days to dry before adding the second coat of paint.
Shelf supports? Drilled. Sleeves and pins.
I'm currently designing/building up a very similarly sized project, but with a slightly different design. Slightly wider, at 13' 6", the height is 9' 10".
Wow! You covered a lot of my concerns and gave me some great ideas. I also like the idea of getting refrigerator boxes and drawing some scale models. The idea of different depth boxes and building 5 sets is also appealing and something I did not think of. I appreciate all the feedback on my posting, it has helped a great deal. Thanks much!
I agreee with all the previous suggestions to draw good plans. Before building a wall of shelves in our living room I went down to the local appliance dealer, grabbed some empty refrigerator boxes and drew our final selection actual size. The time spent drawing saved hours in final construction and gave us a better idea of whether or not we would be happy with the end results.
Good luck with your project.
Oldfred
Bruce
so you have a new 19x26 shop. It'll need all manner of shelves, cases, racks, frames and storage cubby holes. I wouldn't worry too much about the efficient use of a 8x4 sheet of ply. Design a set of shelves that looks right and will work for DW and use the off-cuts to build storage for the shop. Tell DW that you are "just recycling the left over" Sarge built a whole bench from off-cuts!
as to the design can't add much to what others have said, except with paperbacks, the number on a normal shelf can be doubled if you place a 4x4 in box at the back of the shelf to elevate a second row of books.
Ian
Built something similar to what you're describing last fall.
For a 12' wall, use five units. Odd number is more visually pleasing. This would get your span down to about 28". You'll get 3 shelves out of an 8' rip. You can buy 10' plywood for the verticals. Or consider a base unit - you can get birch or maple cabinets at the big box for less than you can make them.
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