Last year we had a single storey extension built at the back of our house. It is one large room replacing the original scullery (a single storey projection that originally had the back door, a copper for heating water, and an outside toilet), and a rotting Wickes DIY conservatory. The wall that faces the neighbours has no windows, so was crying out for a full height book & CD shelf. The top is ideal for the RMS Paper Titanic.
Because of the angled ceiling I couldn’t be bothered with the complication of taking it up to the full height, so decided on 2.2m high. This happens to be about as high as I can reach with ease. The overall width is about 2.6m. I calculated that I needed 70cm for my existing CDs and a bit of expansion space. This leaves two 95cm bays for bookshelves.
Here are the raw ingredients:
I sketched the design, with measurements, and came up with a cutting list. I took this to my local wood shop (no warped knotty B&Q rubbish here!) and got this pile of wood in return. On the top are 2 packs (20m worth) of nickel plated bookcase strips which allow the bookshelves to be movable. They come in brass, too, but yellow with yellow wood would look odd. The whole thing is finished in Ronseal “natural” matt wax, to keep the wood as light as possible. Faux antique pine would look out of place in a modern white room.
Here are the finished parts before assembly, roughly where they will end up. The annotation helps to explain the various joints and parts.
Most of the structure is 220 x 20mm boards. The inside of the CD shelving is 140x14mm boards with a false back. Note that in the middle support (C-D) the slots for the shelf strips are offset. If they weren’t, the slots (6mm deep) on both sides would almost meet in the middle and there wouldn’t be enough wood left to give sufficient strength. From above the horizontal section of this piece looks something like this:
+-------+ +-------------------+ +-+ | +--+ +--+ | | +--+ +--+ | +-+ +-------------------+ +-------+
You can see the offset in the photo if you look closely.
Part | Description |
---|---|
AB | Left side. Bookcase strips routed into right face. |
CD | Middle bookshelf support. Bookcase strips routed into both faces. |
EFG | Right support. Bookcase strips routed into left face. |
HIJ | CD shelf verticals |
FIL | CD shelves x 11 |
KLM | Right side |
ACEHK | Top |
BDGJM | Bottom |
The joints at A,B,C,E,H,K,L and M are screwed together. I used screws everywhere the heads wouldn’t be visible. The right side curved in about 1cm at the bottom and the force required to bend the board meant it needed beefy screws, not dowels.
The joints at D,G,I and J are slotted. I made the ‘I’ slots a bit tight and after waxing all the shelves, it needed a mallet to assemble.
The joints at F (the right end of the CD shelves) are doweled. This is because you would see the screw heads if screws were used.
In the end it fitted so tightly it didn’t seem to need extra fixing, but just to be safe (in case it shrinks over time) I put some beefy L shaped brackets on the top, out of sight, to bolt it to the wall.