DIY Bookshelves

Disclaimer: This is a long post. With a lot of pictures. I venture to say it’s taking me longer to get this post around than it was to actually do the project. With the cabinet finally finished, I realized that my daughter really needed some more room for her books. I didn’t want to fill that pretty thing with all books, so I had to come up with something.

So here’s the something.

I will admit that it’s the first project involving wood/nails/labor that I’ve done completely by myself. Needless to say, I was a little apprehensive, but it turned out better than I expected.

As the books were being placed on the shelves, my little one kept saying, “Hey! I forgot about that book!” “Oooh, I wanna read that one!” Mission. Accomplished.

  

How about a tutorial for this oh-so-easy project? The first stop was to Lowes for some primed MDF strips. I spent more money with the primed version; However, I know you could do this for less money. I knew I’d be painting it light, so I didn’t want to worry about priming it. Worth the money, really.

I drew a small bead of wood glue along the edges to be nailed and held it for a few seconds. It offered some support and kept things from shifting while I was nailing them together.

I knew I wanted three shelves, and they measured out around 27” each. This meant I needed an 8 foot piece of each. I took the three pieces up to the wood-cutter guy (official name) at Lowes and had him cut them. Yeehaw! How easy is that?

After painting them (including the exposed edges), my husband screwed them into some studs on the wall. I didn’t bother hiding the screws. Who’s gonna see them?

Because the beauty of this project is really in the color of the books, I wanted the shelves to be as simple and streamlined as possible. Luckily, that was also the easiest to build.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a success unless this goofball liked them. I think she approves.

Supply breakdown:

• 8 feet, 1x6 (three shelves at @ 27” each)
• 8 feet 1x4
• 8 feet 1x2…………………………….Total of $28.00
• Wood Glue $2.97
• Nails/nail gun, paint—already had