We spent the last couple weekends putting together some bookshelves. I had a bunch of nice planks in various lengths that I decided to reuse.
Here you can see the basic structure. The horizontals and verticals both have a slot cut out of them so that they interlock. The more accurate the slot cuts the better (basic technique is to draw onto the wood, use a circular saw to cut the straights and then a jigsaw to cut out the slot.) The nice thing about this design is that the strength comes fully from the wood; the hardware that is used is only to reinforce.
Beer is vital on these kinds of projects. The bottom piece is just sitting on the floor (with a few shims to level it). I then lightly attached the sides and top to form a frame. On the floor, we slotted a few of the shelves and verts into each other, and pushed them up inside the frame to test fit. So far so good.
Next step was to lever the shelves back down to the floor, and assemble all of the shelves and verts; we glued every joint as we slotted them together. Once they were pushed back into the frame, I used small brackets to attach the shelves and the frame (with more glue between the frame and shelves.) I also uses small brackets to attach the shelves structure as a whole to the wall in a dozen or so places – mainly to prevent the shelves from being pulled forward away from the wall.
Here you can see that I’ve caulked all of the joins, and added an additional piece of shelving between the wall and main structure. Caulk is vital here to achieving a nice finish – every crack should be filled and smoothed.
Primer going on. This is the first time I’ve used primer when painting. I’m now a believer.
First coat of paint. I didn’t bother masking the walls behind the shelves; it was easy to touch up the wall after the shelves had dried.
Second coat of paint.
Here it is done and loaded with books (yet to be organized). As you can see, more shelves are required in future!