Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Building A Bookshelf

After searching high and low for a book shelf that was not just cheap particle board and being on a fairly tight budget my husband and I decided to build one together. This project has cost about 50.00 so far and is sturdy enough that it will last for many years. The book shelf is 6 feet tall by 3 feet wide and 10 inches deep. I still have to buy a small can of dark brown (the color is actually bitter chocolate) to paint the shelves, right now it sits in its primed state of dark primer.

We started with two 6 foot boards and 5 3 foot boards.

Then we measured 16 inches from the top, leaving 1 inch spaces for the shelves themselves. We did get a larger spot on the bottom but this will allow me to place larger items down low and a place to tuck our speaker into for the surround sound.

We then drilled all the holes in the wood for the screws, we used 4 screws per shelf per side.

We also used wood glue just as an extra measure of strength.


We bought an inexpensive piece of backer board and put it on the back with finishing nails.

Here is the finished product before paint.

Here it is primed I will be painting it in a week or so with its lovely dark brown paint, and we will be building a matching unit to place on the other side of the Tv to bring balance and of course lovely places for my books and pottery.
In this last picture you can also see a bit of what else I did over the weekend. The wall color is distinctly different between the first photo and the last.

That post will be coming later this week, Here is a teaser ...

3 comments:

  1. That bookshelf is fabulous! I love it! And the wall color rocks!! I was thinking of something like that color for our guest room.

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  2. You will have your wood bookcase WAY longer than a particleboard knock-together version! I am still using pine book cases my Dad made when I was 6 years old, and let me tell you that's a LONG time ago.

    You may want to think of putting some sort of cleat under the ends of the shelves -- even 1 x 1 board would work -- for strength. But maybe that's just me because I can't see an empty bookshelf without PILING it with books until it screams for mercy.

    Thanks for visiting That Old House today! :-) I try and answer readers but sometimes just plain run out of time.

    I love the blue paint -- what color is it? I chose beachy blues for our family's beach house this spring, so I'm still obsessed with shades of blue!

    And ... I just became your newest follower. And now I have to go to BED. I stayed up late to fetch my daughter from the local bus depot; she was very late leaving the city tonight.

    but I'm yawning!
    Best wishes -- Cass

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  3. Cass~ We actually talked about getting some 1x1 to put under each shelf. I have O so many books that need to go up there. The DVD's that are currently on this shelf will be re-arranged so that I can fit some of my precious loves on them, Books.

    I was at the dreaded box store yesterday and walked past a prefabbed book shelf (one of those pressed board junkers) that was approximately the same size as the one we just built only a little narrower and they wanted 80.00 for it!

    Yay for new followers. I sure hope that I am not talking to myself all the time. :)

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