The Office: Step One, Bookcases

Build bookcases.  Have you ever endeavored to do this?  If so, you were ahead of me!  There were many things to consider along the way, but I'm proud to say that my very first venture into sizable furniture making was probably a success:  

First decision, how big?  I liked the look of bookcases with sides that there 12” or so, to make a deeper shelf, so that took care of the width of the side pieces and shelves.  Height?  Oh, heck, 7 feet look good.  And pretty much anywhere we may live in the future would have ceiling space to accommodate that.  And how wide?  Well, not too wide to make them unstable, but not too narrow because I really want them to hold a lot…I settled on 32” long shelves.  More on why later…

Second decision, how to attach shelves?  I didn’t want to see a bunch of nail or screw heads dotting the sides, so I opted for under-the-shelf brackets.  Although I didn’t find much info on how much weight they could bear, I picked one inch brackets for the front (2/shelf) and two inch brackets for the back (2/shelf).  OK, but how many shelves will there be?

Third decision, shelf spacing, and consequently, number?  I thought it might be nice to mix it up with shelves spaced between 14”-12”, and laid out a plan for the bottom 2 shelves to be 14” and the remainder be about 12”, allowing for a 3 ½” base, because I didn’t want the bottom shelf sitting on the floor.  This worked out to be 7 shelves per bookcase.

Forth decision, what wood?  Being budget minded, as I am, here’s what ultimately happened.  I drove an hour to a real lumber yard.   Technically, my mister drove me an hour to the lumber yard as he has a truck.  Yes, yes, I live in a small town with nothing to offer.  Home Depot was a ray of light to me.  And, even better, I could find the wood (and the prices) online from home.  Heck, if I trusted them to be nearly as discerning as I, they would have picked out the wood for me and set it aside, which was not going to happen, of course.  But, they did have a good enough supply of common pine boards, 1”X12”X8’ and X10’ and X12’ as well.  This is where having math skills comes in…

8 feet = 96inches, divided by my shelf length of 32”= exactly 3 shelves could be cut from each 8’ board.  Nice, eh?  More on that later too…

So, since I’m destined to build 2 bookcases, exactly alike, I would need:

4-8 foot boards for the sides

 5-8 foot boards for the shelves

But that would leave me with one shelf extra, and I thought, that would be wasteful, so I complicated things by instead getting:

2-10 foot boards, cut for 2 sides, plus one shelf each

2-8 foot boards, cut for 2 sides

4-8 foot boards, cut in thirds, for three shelves each

Fifth decision, decoration and backing?  Some 7’ (perfect, no cutting) fluted 2-inch wide strips caught our attention, as well as some oblong corner pieces, so the idea was to put the fluted strips up the front sides, and the corner pieces on each of the four corners.  The backing was decided up on by 1)looks, 2)price, 3)thickness.  I settled on subflooring, 1/4" thick with a nice layer of wood pressed onto the top.  These were also cut for us (2 cuts) by the great folk at Home Depot.  They have a very cool machine for this.

I also wanted to have a base and decorative top on these cases, and with my new toy…a jib saw…this was entirely possible.  This would fill in the space between the floor and the bottom shelf (3 ½ inches) and shorten the amount of usable frontage space on the top shelf, where I chose an arc design.  I used scraps from the backing to create these pieces.

Sixth decision, what color to stain them?  With pine, the mister, a very experienced painter formerly, I was advised strongly to use a prestain conditioner, which Minwax was handy with making.  The color…hmmm.  Tough choice.  We wanted to go lighter, much lighter in the office, but I have an aversion to blonde wood.  We settled on Minwax golden pecan, got it home, stirred it up, and quickly saw that this was going to be far, far too dark.  Sneaky…I returned it to Walmart, and exchanged it for our runner up-an even lighter, golden oak.  This was our winner.  Nice, light, but not blonde, just enough gold, but not reddish.  Two coats, went on easy, covered nicely.

Seventh decision, what finish to give them?  After discussion, we decided a semi gloss poly would do.  Also two coats.  Great finish, not too shiny, but enough to give it some durability.  Also by Minwax.

The assembly…

Unfortunately, 4 of my shelf boards were too long, those that were cut off the ends of the 8 foot boards, by about a half inch.  Luckily I was able to correct that with the jig saw.

Once I picked the “good” side of each board, I began by drilling and screwing the brackets into place on the shelves, placing the outer of the bracket edge 1” from the outer edge of the shelf, on the ends, two per end, each shelf. 

Then I drilled and screwed the brackets into one long side of the case, flipped it over (with the shelves almost dangling for a moment) on top of the second side, and drilled and screwed the brackets into this side as well.

*Tip, measure and mark your spaces not with a pen or pencil, but with painters tape to leave no mark.  This is also a good way to determine how tall you want your cases or what shelf spacing you prefer-just use a door frame or wall to get a picture of how it would look.

Flip the case over so that it was face down, and nailed on the backing along each shelf and along the sides.

Flip the case again, laying on its back this time, and applied the struts for the base and top, nailed into the bottom of the bottom shelf and the top shelf.  Remember to stain the top shelf strut, as it will show when you look up. 

Apply the cut sections of the base and the decorative top with wood glue securely along the struts.  Use small nails in the corners (these will be hidden by the fluting) to stabilize.  Glue the facing-those 7’ fluted strips onto the front, using wire nails to secure them every so often.

Glue the corner pieces on.

Wait for glue to cure.

Step back and admire your work!

At least, this is how I did it.  Admittedly, I haven’t put anything in them yet, that will be tomorrow.  Wish me luck!