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Building and hanging cabinet doors is a fussy, time-consuming job. To avoid the hassle, buy standard kitchen cabinets and build around them. The inexpensive cabinets we chose for this bookcase cost about $150 more than building doors and boxes from scratch. Considering the huge time savings, that's a bargain. The main disadvantage of store-bought cabinets is that almost all are prefinished. So you'll have to find a matching stain and clear coating to finish the parts you've built from scratch.
Add curves and other fancy touches to your bookcase the easy way with polyurethane plastic trim. Working with polyurethane trim is much like working with wood—you cut it with standard saw blades, nail it by hand or with a gun and paint it just like wood. Home centers carry a small selection of polyurethane trim. You can find an endless variety of options by going online and searching for “polyurethane trim” (some products are listed as “urethane” rather than “polyurethane”).
Screwing your bookcase to the wall studs is one way to anchor your bookcase so it can't tip over and injure someone. Just make sure to load up the bookcase with books so it fully compresses the carpet before you drive the screws. If you want to be able to move the bookcase without removing screws, pick up a couple of chain latches ($5 each). Fasten the chains to studs with 2-1/2-in. coarse-thread screws. Position the tracks so there will be just enough slack in the chains for you to detach them.
Plywood is an essential material for bookcases. It's strong, affordable and good looking. There's just one problem: those ugly edges. You can hide edges behind solid wood or moldings, but the quickest, easiest edge solution is a thin strip of wood veneer called “edge banding” ($6 for 25 ft. at home centers). The process couldn't be simpler: You just iron on the adhesive-backed veneer and trim off the excess.
Adjustable shelves beat fixed shelves in just about every way. They make storage and display space more versatile, of course. And they're usually just slabs of plywood nosed with strips of wood or edge banding, so they're easy to make. And because you can remove them, adjustable shelves simplify staining and finishing. The easiest way to support adjustable shelves is by using shelf standards are ($3 for 6 ft. at home centers). Just screw them into place and you're done.
For a more elegant look, use peg-type shelf supports. Drilling dozens of holes takes a while, but a scrap of pegboard makes positioning the holes easy. If you don't like the look of all those holes, drill only where you plan to place shelves. That way the holes will be hidden. If you want to move shelves later, you can drill new holes and hide the old ones with wood filler.
Whether you choose standards or peg-type supports, stick rubber cabinet door bumpers on the supports to eliminate sliding or rocking shelves.
A sled will turn your table saw into a crosscutting and mitering machine. You can build one, plus a miter-cutting attachment, in a couple of hours. Get complete instructions here.
If you already have a miter saw, you're probably wondering, “Why bother?” Because no miter saw can match the reliable accuracy of a sled. A sled gives you consistent, clean and exact cuts and it crosscuts stock up to 19 in. wide—perfect for shelves and other wide parts.
There's a lot of space above the shelf in most closets. Even though it's a little hard to reach, it's a great place to store seldom-used items. Make use of this wasted space by adding a second shelf above the existing one. Buy enough closet shelving material to match the length of the existing shelf plus enough for two end supports and middle supports over each bracket. Twelve-inch-wide shelving (about $9 for an 8-ft. length) is available in various lengths and finishes at home centers and lumberyards.
Salvage the hidden space at the recessed ends of your closets by adding a set of shelves. Wire shelves are available in a variety of widths. Measure the width and depth of the space. Then choose the correct shelving and ask the salesperson to cut the shelves to length for you or cut them yourself with a hacksaw. Subtract 3/8 in. from the actual width to determine the shelf length. Buy a pair of end mounting brackets and a pair of plastic clips for each shelf.
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September 12, 7:03 PM [GMT -5]
Another option for our floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. We dressed up edge of 2x4s and routed the other in which we embedded adjustable shelf tracks. After finishing the edges of the shelving, staining everything then snipping the tips off all the brackets, we placed the supports away from the walls with the brackets facing the walls then the shelving on the brackets. The weight of the books hold everything securely against the walls without any need to anchor. Our first such bookshelf went through a major earthquake with no problems as did our current one. They're inexpensive, easy to build, good looking and versatile, basically everything we want in our library.
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