Want a stylish place to pile up your photographs and books? The good news is you can do this home improvement project yourself, so forget spending at least $1000 on a new bookcase. And, you don’t need to be a master carpenter to do it. All it takes is some will, good instructions, a sturdy veneer plywood, and circular saw.
Your first job is to put together a series of short support pieces and attach to a longer strip of wood to create the look of thick boards intended for shelves. It’s also good to get some solid-wood trip to cover the edges of your bookcase, hiding your clever trickery.
It’s your choice to use solid wood boards for this home improvement project but it can be quite expensive. As an alternative, oak plywood would do; just make sure you double its thickness for the sides and legs by gluing and nailing the shelf support parts onto the longer boards. You may hide the rough edges with solid-wood finish trim.
Here’s the step-by-step:
- Cut plywood according to size of legs, shelves, and supports.
- Begin attaching supports to the legs by gluing and nailing.
- Assemble the box.
- Level the parts of the bookcase.
- Screw the parts firmly together.
- Hammer the kickboard onto the bookcase.
- Engrave the trim to fit.
- Apply nosing to the shelves.
All this work should take a day or two to complete, depending on your speed. Nonetheless, it’s all in a weekends work.
