How to Build Your Own Bookshelf

From time to time here on Prime Time Money I like to share some of the woodworking or home-improvement projects I complete in my spare time. Sometimes these are ideas that have saved me money. Most of the time though, they’re just things I do to have some fun and use my brain in a different way. See more of them under the “Do It Yourself” category.

The latest project is a bookshelf I built to be used for our baby girl’s room. You could build this yourself and it’s nice enough to use it in your home office, living room, or bedroom.

I got the idea for the bookshelf from a friend, who’s built a similar one for his living room. In general it’s built using only inexpensive lumber, a table saw, some wood glue, sand paper, and a nail gun. I added a couple of coats of some black semi-gloss paint to match the other furniture in our baby girl’s room.

How I Built the Bookshelf

The above picture shows the side paneling, built with four (4) 1×4 treated pieces of wood held together by five (5) 1×2 strips made from another 1×4. The strips are glued and nailed to the panel pieces. Since your bookshelf has two sides, you’ll need to make two of these side panels.

These strips serve to add strength to the bookshelf, but also serve as the rails for the shelves. For this reason, you’ll need to place your strips in exactly the same location on either panel. And because you’re building it yourself, you’ll get to decide where to put your shelves. I chose to make two bigger spaces on the top and bottom, with two smaller spaces in between.

Up next, you’ll need to connect your side panels to the top. The top is a special “project piece”. It’s basically strips of hardwood glued together to make a nice, big piece of wood, suitable for a bookshelf top. This was the most expensive part of the project, but worth it.

To connect these two pieces, I simply used the nail gun on the top side of the top piece and nailed down into the side panels.That didn’t feel strong enough, so I ran a piece between the two side panels just under the top piece at the back. See the black pieces in the picture below. Unfortunately, the above two pictures are all the construction pictures I have. I’ve put together this rough drawing though for you to follow…

As you can see, once you get the two side panels connected to the top piece and you have your support slats in place, you’ve basically got the framework for the bookshelf built. Up next is adding the decorative trim pieces (above in red). Again, I used the 1×4 pieces to create these trim pieces. Doing this adds some depth to the look of the bookshelf and helps to hide the shelf support rails. These pieces are all nailed to the framework using the nail gun.

Next, I added a pre-finished faux-panelling to the back of the bookshelf. You can barely make it out in the last picture below. It adds a decorative touch without adding too much weight to the bookshelf.

Lastly, I purchased a 1×12 piece of shelving wood to create the shelves. This was my last and easiest step. The shelves aren’t nailed into the bookshelf, so I just needed to cut them to the correct size.

Once all the pieces were in place, I sanded the bookshelf (a lot, so little fingers can’t get splinters) and added two coats of paint. Here’s the final product…

The Finished Bookshelf

In the picture above, you can see the completed bookshelf. I have to say, this has to be one of the favorite projects I’ve completed. It was fairly inexpensive ($75 for all the supplies), quick to build, and it turned out great. Nice enough to go in any room in my house, I’d say. Makes me smile to think that our little girl will grow up using this bookshelf her Dad made her.

In this last picture you can see the crib which I was trying to match somewhat with the look of the bookshelf. You can barely make out the faux-panelling on the back of the bookshelf. This, I thought, went well with the slats of our girl’s crib.

Let me know if you’re interested in doing this yourself and I can help provide more details for you. Also, if you’ve done any woodworking, send some pictures my way. I’d be glad to share your project here on the blog.

Update #1: A reader emailed in need of a materials list for this project. While I don’t have an exact list made up, I’ve thrown together a rough version for you to start from. Here’s roughly what you’ll need:

Materials List

• 48 feet of 1×4 inexpensive pine (for all the side slats, trim, and internal framing)
• 12 feet of 1×16 shelving (for the shelves)
• roughly 24×36 project piece (nice) of hardwood (for the top)
• at least 3 feet x 4 feet sheet of beaded board panelling (back)
• sander
• wood glue
• nailgun
• black semi-gloss paint and brush

Update #2: Readers have been emailing in asking for more details on how to build the shelf. I took a stab at some crude step-by-step instructions:

Step-by-Step Instructions (…sort of)

1. First, make the side pieces: cut the 1×4s into 8 pieces, 4 ft in length; use some more 1×4s (cut longways in half) to make the supports for the sides; glue and nail gun the supports to the 4 side peices. You should now have your side peices ready.
2. Nail the top project peice to the side peices.
3. Cut 2 extra 1×4s (cut in half) into cross bars for the bottom (to give the bottom of the shelf some extra support).
4. Use the remaining 1×4s to add front facing trim work to the shelf.
5. Cut and nail the beadboard to the back of the shelf.
6. Cut the 1×16s into shelf peices.
7. Sand and paint it all and place the shelf peices inside. Viola!

Let me know how it goes!

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Tagged as: bookshelf, build, DIY, frugal, projects, woodworking