Posted by rocketgirlsf on April 2, 2009
As I’m home sick with a cold, and no hope of symptom relief from my usual OTC drugs, I figured I’d pick an easy topic: shelves. Shelves are the small-space inhabitant’s zinc. It’s her TheraFlu. Her warm bath followed by Vicks Vaporub. Shelves save precious floor space, are reasonably easy to install, and best of all, they’re temporary. We’ve got them in every room in our house, and will probably have more by the time RocketBaby arrives.
Of course, in an earthquake zone, shelves have their problems; I wouldn’t want to be under one of our bookshelves in the event of anything higher than a 5.0. (RocketMan, BTW, seems to think the biggest concern with an earthquake is the building falling in, but I think I’m bringing him around to the reality that stuff falling is a more likely scenario.) As with many ideas I post here, they could put a ding in your security deposit; unless you’re going for the freestanding kind (which take up floor space! boo!), shelves require holes drilled in walls. But in the case of the shelves below, only twelve holes, in total, were required. Not bad for holding up 48 feet of books.
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Originally, these shelves were in the office, but since the office has been designated as the new nursery, we had two problems to solve: move the office, and move the shelves. We decided that the sunroom was the best place for both; it already had a bookshelf, and the computer had been in there before I moved in five years ago. In addition, it’s one of the only rooms that still had open wall space. Alas, no recent before pictures to share, unless I find where RM saved them on the computer.
The construction is simple, and based on Elfa shelving: spines screwed in at the top, running the length of the unit to the floor, where another screw holds the spine in place. Fortunately, our apartment has good bones, with wood crown molding and solid wood baseboards, both strong bases for the books—and in this case, our computer monitor and tower.
The wood spines are adjustable shelving spines screwed to 2×2 pine wood posts; the shelves themselves are mostly 3/4 inch plywood, either 8 or 12 inches deep. (A few of the shelves are white-lacquered pressed wood, leftover from a previous shelving project.)
These shelves were constructed in the same way, but instead of posts that go floor to ceiling, they’re balanced atop the credenza ($25 from Goodwill). Bookends vary, as you can see: some are shelf dividers from The Container Store; some bookends we had lying around; and others are, say, a begonia, a TV diorama, or a giant glass head filled with rocks (Pier 1 Imports, $9.99. I still don’t know why they had five shelves of those heads, but I’m glad they did.).
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 The library |
 Closeup of bracket, post and spine. |
 Inexplicable glass head |
The best part of the new shelves? No more stacks of books piled in corners or doubled up on shelves. We liked the units so much we even installed them in our bathroom. (That’s for a later blog.) All in all, here’s the damage we did. Aside from the shelf dividers, everything came from Cole Hardware. RM would like to remind our readers that they’re all “in-town” prices—Home Depot would’ve been cheaper, materials-wise, but not if he’d had to rent a car. Like with all of our projects, this one involved a great deal of schlepping, with special thanks to RocketMan’s brother, who was visiting during the construction. As a New Yorker, he knows from schlepping.
| Item |
Price |
Total |
| 2″x2″ 8′ pine posts (6) |
$3.79 |
$22.74 |
| 2′x4′ 3/4″ thick plywood sheets (4) |
$21 |
$84 |
| 8″ shelf brackets (10) |
$2.79 |
$27.90 |
| 12″ shelf brackets (8) |
$3.29 |
$26.32 |
| 48″ adjustable shelving spine (4) |
$5 |
$20 |
| 72″ adjustable shelving spine (2) |
$7 |
$14 |
| Shelf dividers (4) |
$7 for 2 |
$14 |
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GRAND TOTAL: |
$208.96 |
Because you read the whole blog, you get a prize. FISH!
Courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and The RocketCam.
Posted in organization | Tagged: bookshelf, bookshelves, Cole Hardware, container store, DIY, elfa, office, plywood, shelving | 1 Comment »
Posted by rocketgirlsf on January 15, 2009
Although I’m not drinking as much as I used to, RocketMan still enjoys a cocktail, and our friends certainly enjoy when he shakes up a Manhattan or a Negroni at our home bar. For a long time I’d wanted a supercool art deco bar, or a 70s-style bar like my grandparents had (of which I cannot find a reasonable facsimile).
Obviously, space and cash stood in our way. Clearing out six square feet of floor space for a beautiful piece of furniture was a hard sell, especially when we had other needs beyond the basic bottle placement. Space prevents us from being collectors—we don’t even own martini glasses—and we needed room for wine as well as cookbooks. (We’re not wine collectors, either; we have four bottles we’re saving, and other than that, the drinks get drunk.)
We’d inherited two hutches from a friend–very basic cube-shaped stained-wood hutches, the kind of furniture that you never, ever notice. At least I never did. I knew something held up our vacuum lamp, but it never registered that it was actually a piece of furniture in its own right. So RocketMan strapped on his toolbelt, threw together a bookshelf, tinkered with the hutches, and here’s the result.
It stands in the corner of our living room, right next to the kitchen, for easy cookbook/booze access.
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MY FAVORITE FEATURES
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Pretty, pretty bottles!
Back to Tap Plastics for this piece of translucent plastic–cut by the kind folks at the store, and costing a whopping $15.
- It’s hinged to the hutch with basic hardware, and tethered by a piece of wire pulled through a small hole drilled in the corner. That’s a skeleton hand fastened to the wire.
- It closes with a simple magnetic latch.
- Add a fluorescent light to the back wall of the hutch, and presto—some nice mood lighting and instant decoration. The switch to the light is attached to a light switch that controls all our low evening lighting. (That’s another blog.)
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DIY wine rack
Below the liquor is our wine rack. It’s exactly what it looks like: sawed-off cardboard tubing glued together and stacked. I’ve never seen anything like it. Only drawback: larger bottles like Pinot Noir and sparkling wine will not fit in these holes, so they go on the bottom shelf, which is tubing-free.
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Handy cookbooks
For a long time, our cookbooks were on the top shelf of our kitchen—well out of my reach and as a result, underused. When I use cookbooks I like to sit on the couch and read them, spread out a few on the coffee table, compare notes. This solution was perfect: well within reach and between the kitchen and the couch. We have a few more cookbooks on other bookshelves; these are my favorites.
If you’re a little handy with a drill and saw, the construction is simple. It’s all pine, and the side panels have the adjustable holes built in; the shelf is another piece of pine resting on supports. Another piece of wood shores up the back, and metal brackets fastens the whole shebang to the top hutch.
- A pencil-thin fluorescent light attached to the bookshelf illuminates the workspace.
- No bar is complete without a cutting board. Knives are right around the corner on the magnetic strip.
- The juicer initially seemed like a frivolous wedding registry idea, but it turns out we love it! Nothing like a fresh mimosa to start your weekend, and this baby does the trick.
FYI, those are our dinner napkins (we eat at the coffee table). And the little green bottle is cheap liquor our friend brought back from the Beijing Olympics. The other bottle she gave us smelled like candy-flavored lighter fluid, so we’re just enjoying the green bottle for now. |
Posted in bar, kitchen, living room | Tagged: bar, bookshelf, booze, cocktail, cookbooks, cutting board, hutch, juicer, kitchen, lighting, liquor, living room, mixers, shelf, shelves, wine rack | 2 Comments »
