[badtheba]

So my wife loves books, and ended up with a collection from a customer of mine that had to go into a retirement home. There have been books on sawhorse benches in the basement for a few weeks now, so I have been scrounging up materials here and there to build bookcases.

I have another thread on some barn wood ones I'm working on, but here's a finished piece I built in under a week from a construction site scrap pile. No piece longer than 2', except for the angled cuts. The shelves are those engineered OSB center floor joists. I covered the tops and bottoms with 3/16" luan from Lowes at $12, needed 1 sheet.

The sides are each made of 3 pieces of planed down 2x10 Douglas fir that were cut offs from the rafters. Glued and screwed together.

The first 2 pics are at the wood shop, the last is assembled in our basement.

 

[oh'mike]

Nice design--don't mention that it was all scrap----looks like you ment to build it like that.

 

[gma2rjc]

o'mike is exactly right. It looks like you built them that way on purpose. I like them better than any I've seen on some of the home improvement shows, like Mega Dens, House Crashers, etc.

Nice job!

 

[badtheba]

I did mean to build them like that, lol. I can't say as I counted up my pieces as I was collecting them, but I did form the design in my head right after seeing the pieces. It just so happened that I had zero extra joist pieces, and the "extra" 2x10 material cupped badly after being planed, so I had to raid my stash from when I did my stairs for some of the pieces that hold it square. So it worked out almost exactly.

On top of the free materials, I also ended up with tons of project screws, decking screws, drywall screws, etc. for free from my wife's workplace when they changed vendors (she works at a hardware store (I KNOW!)). So the luan and polyurethane have been my only costs.

Hopefully the barn wood cases will be worth showing off as well. I used to work for a custom cabinetry shop, and still have access to it for my own use, a mile from home.

 

[badtheba]

The biggest downside to using the materials I did is that although the 2x10s seemed dry, after planing them down I got a lot of cupping and shrinkage. I ripped them to 9 1/4" wide, and by the time I assembled them 3-4 days later, they had lost 1/4" in depth (width of the boards, depth of the bookcase), so I had to adjust.

 

[thediyhubby]

Well done! Great design for what you had to work with. I know exactly how you feel, my wife is a book addict and buys them almost daily. I've lost track of how many floating shelves I've fitted over the years to accommodate her hobby! Think my next project will be something similar...

 

[badtheba]

Well done! Great design for what you had to work with. I know exactly how you feel, my wife is a book addict and buys them almost daily. I've lost track of how many floating shelves I've fitted over the years to accommodate her hobby! Think my next project will be something similar...

Thanks! We were able to get less than half her newly acquired books on this one, so if I want the rest off my sawhorses I guess I'll have to finish the barn wood project.

 

[thediyhubby]

This is too funny! Are we married to the same woman? Here is a pic of some floating shelves that I recently fitted, used the off-cuts to make the little table next to chair. The funny part is that the centerpiece on the little table is the same book as your centerpiece on the bookshelf. Looks like we are married to the same type of woman..lol

 

[thediyhubby]

Fitted these shelves two months ago when all the other bookshelves in the house ran out of space. Thought at the time that these would provide plenty of space to keep her happy for a year or two. It's already overpopulated!

 

[123pugsy]

Thanks! We were able to get less than half her newly acquired books on this one, so if I want the rest off my sawhorses I guess I'll have to finish the barn wood project.

Nice design. :wink2:

 

[mathmonger]

Can they stand by themselves or do they rack left and right? Does that piece at the top keep everything square?

 

[badtheba]

Can they stand by themselves or do they rack left and right? Does that piece at the top keep everything square?

They will easily stand by themselves and not rack. I put a 2x10 section across the back of each top shelf, and put in 2 or more screws wherever I could on the back of each shelf to prevent movement. Between the two sides is a 1x4 that extends each direction for 8" overlap, and that's where I screwed it to the wall to keep it from falling forward (since I have a 1 1/2 yr old kid).

I did my final assembly with them face down on the floor and squared them up before driving the screws. By the time I stood them back up they were extremely stiff. However, by the time I glued the liners to the shelves and put a finish on it, they were out of square because of changes in the wood. I just screwed it to one stud and then nudged the bottom over to correct.