Couldn’t be happier about the fact that we are a family that loves reading. We love being surrounded by books. Owning a large private library has always been a dream.
We’ve been going a bit overboard with books lately and as a result had no space left on our already overflowing bookshelves. Having decided that we needed a new bookshelf, we went into overdrive trying to find a nice design to replicate – we had our heart set on this seater that was a bookshelf as well – imagine sitting among books – you might never want to get up :).
With great (and misplaced) enthusiasm, I started designing the structure a Thursday night and stayed up till 3:00 AM to work out every detail. Friday morning we headed out to breakfast with our architect friends and they showed us a remarkable bookshelf just made of steel plumbing pipes. Our hearts flipped immediately to the new design (and given my rudimentary carpentry skills, the probability of screwing up the project had just fallen a few percentage points)
After tucking in on a hearty breakfast, we headed to the department store to pick up the pipes. As luck would have it, they had no metal plumbing pipes in stock. Then started the search for alternatives – pvc pipes, aluminium pipes, curtain rods – anything that looked like a pipe…couldn’t find anything we liked. After nearly an hour of walking through the aisles of the store, we came across some pine wood we liked. We immediately set out to work out a new design. With a rough sketch in place, we made the purchase of 5 strips of pine wood and some L brackets. If you haven’t guessed already, our design and measurements were all over the place when we got back home.
With numerous mistakes made, we accomplished a basic skeleton for one half of the shelf by midnight that night. We set out to finish the other half the next day.
Important Lessons Learnt
- Absolutely nothing worked as designed. We had to pivot and make things up as we went along
- It helps to either have a hardware store nearby or a nicely stocked hardware cabinet at home – you will need to visit the store more than once.
- Make peace with the mistakes you make – they help you get better in the long run ( at least that is what I keep telling myself 🙂 )
Timeline
- Putting up the frame was a couple of hours of work along with the wall brackets. This is a 2 person task
- The lighting took about an hour to put together
- All the arrangements took about 4 hours 🙂
A very special thanks is due to our extremely talented friends (Shubhi and Amitesh) who not only made a huge contribution to the ever evolving design, but also hung in there with us through all the problem solving and building.
The photographs below are just some of the steps that the build went through to get to the final product.
The first section of the shelf
L brackets placed at key places help hold up the structure and the weight associated with the books. Normally, the L brackets would be placed to face down, but that would not have allowed us to hide away the brackets to make it look like a floating shelf.
Screws help secure the plank to the wall. There is also a 3 inch gap between the wall and the books – giving the shelf a feeling of floating. As with every project, mistakes were made that then had to be corrected (In this case, the L clamps were not symmetrical and we had marked out the incorrect places to drill.)
Bought some basic LED lights from Ikea and installed them on the underside. The wiring is held in place behind the wood with wire fasteners.
Cable fasteners holding the wires together
Another view of the cable management
One of the early passes at stuff that we placed on the shelf.
When the lights were completed in the first section.
The finished product :). This turned out way better than I had expected.
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