Arch enemies

Library Built Ins 5

Arches aren’t really my enemies.  They used to be but I think I’ve finally gotten the better of them and now I’ll take on a more charitable attitude towards them.         Oh those cute little darlings.

 

I’m SUPER DUPER excited about how my bookshelves are coming along!   I know some of you want a tutorial.  I’ve been working on this room for about 3 weeks and it is way too involved for me to write a quick tutorial on how to slap up  custom built-ins in one post.  I can share the steps that went into building my library bookshelves.  Maybe it will help guide your project.

 

Steps to building custom Built-In bookshelves.

1.  Stare at your empty room.  (If your room is full of junk, empty it — then stare at it.)

2.  Visualize your room as you want it to be.  You might imagine 6 different possibilities.  Pick the one that you like the best.  (If you are having trouble visualizing, go to Pinterst or Google and search for images that inspire you.)

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3.  Start building the bookshelves.  This is the nuts and bolts of the project.  It’s hard work.  You’ll sweat.  You’ll have bruises and cuts and scrapes all over your body from lifting, balancing and carrying heavy objects that under normal circumstanced you would not even dream of attempting but because you are determined to DO THIS you somehow do it!

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Realize that two outlets are going to have to be moved…and move them wasting precious hours of your cabinet building time!
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Finish building bookshelves.

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Build a base.

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Get all your bookshelves spaced evenly according to your vision and secure them to the wall.

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Attach face frames.
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Attach more face frames — maybe even arched ones.
Library Built Ins 4And then keep adding more and more details until you achieve your vision.Did that help?
Building built-ins whether they are bookshelves or closet wardrobes — is the same as building a simple cabinet.  It’s just on a bigger scale.  You can refer to my 3 part cabinet building tutorial if you want help starting at the beginning.  Then keep building from there.
These faceframes are completely made out of MDF, arches included.  I’m planning to post a tutorial on how to create those later this week.  Refer to this post to learn how to get smooth edges when painting MDF.

If you have specific questions regarding any of these steps, or built ins in general, leave them in the comments and I’ll see if I know the answer.  If I do, I’ll share.

Cheers

 

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20 Comments

  2. It looks like your face frames are made of MDF as well. What do you have to do to the cut edges to make them ready for painting?

  3. Ronda Batchelor says:

    I was going to do arches on my book cases but in the end there wasn’t enough room. But out of curiosity how did you get the curve in your arches and what did you cut them with

  4. That’s a good question Greta. I decide how deep I WANT them to be. The standard depth for closet shelving is 18″ but I wanted mine 24″. The standard depth for bookshelves if 12″ but I want mine 14″ because I want to make sure even large books will fit. If you want to be able to store decorative baskets and other chzatchkies on it, I generally do 14-16″ especially if I have a deep base cabinet underneath. I don’t like a huge step back from top to bottom. 2-4″ is what I like for that. So, if you have 18″ deep base cabinets (say you want to store all your board games…) then I’d go 14-16″ on the top.

    Ultimately, it’s a matter of choice. That’s the beauty of doing custom, you get to do exactly what works for YOU.

  5. Thank you so much for posting your progress with your bookcases! It is really inspirational and I hope to start a similar project very soon! This may sound like a pretty naive question- but how do you determine the depth of your shelving for bookcases and closet shelving? Are these standard measurements?

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