I am not a neat-freak but chaos beyond a certain point seems to hurt my productivity and mental peace. My first serious woodwork project was an utility shelf, barely 6″ deep, 2 ft wide and 6 ft tall, but it served me very well for the last three years.
Recently, easy access to everyday things has been an issue, since Priti loves to do origami and by now we have a lot of them lying around. So I decided it was time to upgrade. Nice excuse to play with the tools for a few hours.
I came up with a 6 ft tall, 2.5 ft wide and about a foot deep storage with 3 fixed shelves and 4 adjustable ones. About 5 hours of back breaking labor but the feeling of extra space is so nice that it makes me compare to an upgrade of 1gb to 10gb of RAM !
For those who want to make one, here is a cut list:
1. 12″ wide white melamine panel with pre-drilled holes for shelving: 6ft x2 (I bought two 8 ft long panels since there was no 12 ft)
2. 12″ wide solid white melamine panel: 30″ x3 (bought one 8 ft panel)
3. 12″ wide pine panel: 30″ x4 (bought two 6 ft panels)
4. 1/8″ thick handypanel for backing board: 3 pieces of 24″x48″, then cut each to 24″x31.5″
I used pocket joinery and glue to fix the 3 melamine shelves first. The structure at this point is not very rigid, it can shear, leading to joint failure since melamine is not very dense. For the extra rigidity, the backing boards are glued and nailed behind. The adjustable shelves got notches cut where it sits on the metal spoons, to prevent an accidental slip out, by an earthquake or otherwise.
Oh and the total cost of wood from home depot: $80. Satisfaction of building a quality storage shelf for our daily use: priceless.
#1 by Francesco Gallarotti on October 25, 2009 - 4:39 pm
Gorgeous!… $80 for a real wood bookcase… at IKEA you can barely buy a Billy bookcase with the same amount…
#2 by Francesco Gallarotti on October 25, 2009 - 4:45 pm
Actually now that I am re-reading your instructions, why not making it all of wood and drill the holes yourself? Or, if you decided to use white melamine to reduce cost, why not make all the shelves with that material? Essentially my question is: why did you mix?
#3 by therider on October 25, 2009 - 5:10 pm
Good questions.
1. In my first bookcase I drilled the holes myself but it takes way too much time and patience to lay out the points. I even made a jig to simplify that but for me it is no more worth my time.
2. I mixed because there is usually no pine panel with drilled holes. I could go for all pine shelves but just wanted to make the fixed case with white and adjustables ones of pine which I can paint white later on (I deliberately left them unfinished now).
My other shelf in the bedroom for clothes is all melamine and is 16″ deep. It offers a LOT of space to keep clothes compactly.
The fact that we are able to live decently in a single bedroom and without much need for things says enough that it is a doable thing with good space management. Who needs a 4br house for one family ?