DIY bookcase: design, construction and decoration

A DIY shelving unit is not only simple, but also economical. If you have never made something with your own hands before, then a whatnot is the first step for a novice craftsman.

What is a bookcase? This is a furniture option that consists of shelves combined into a common structure. The shelf can be used for flowers, shoes, personal care products or tools.

There are no restrictions on the use of shelves, except for weighing ones. You should not load the bookcase with too much weight, because it is not a rack.

A bookcase, as you know, is a cabinet without walls.

Long gone are the days when the whatnot was the “highlight” of the living room and the hostesses of secular salons vying with each other to see whose was cooler.

The benefits of making it yourself

Do you know what the advantages of any “hand-made” product are?

Savings in its purest form. Often, when buying a finished item, you have to overpay for the brand name, for low-quality material purchased in bulk, and for the work of the craftsman.
Meets all requirements. You make a bookcase according to certain technical characteristics: width, height, number of shelves, material, color. Of course, stores offer a huge variety of options for any furniture. The bookcases were no exception. But most often, products produced on a machine are measured in whole units. You can make an interior item that is ideal in size and style.

You can name other advantages to making a bookcase with your own hands, but all the main ones are highlighted.

It is also shelves height from the floor, sometimes on wheels, or a rack for a relatively small operational load, not attached to the floor, walls or ceiling.

Nowadays, most of the shelves in everyday life are used to place indoor plants.

Recommendations for placing shelving

Installation of stationary shelving can be done in the kitchen, pantry or garage. Large open shelves provide great visibility. In this case, all items are easily obtained and just as easily returned to their place. It is better to install a closed shelving unit in a children's room or living room . For example, you can store a large number of books or toys there. The baby will be able to store his things in such a rack.

Kitchen shelving

If we talk about the rotating structure, then it can be installed almost anywhere, be it a children's room, a garage or a living room. The rack is more complex to make, and you also need to learn how to decorate it, because if you install the product in the middle of the living room, it will always be in sight of guests.

Deciding on design and construction

The design of the bookcase depends entirely on your desires and capabilities. If we are talking about a bookcase as a decorative element, then you can choose an interesting material: rattan or glass, beech or forged metal.

A multifunctional piece of cabinet furniture that can effectively zone a room and be aesthetically significant in the interior.

Here the openwork of the whatnot works for functionality: using the whatnot, plants can be placed on a minimal floor area so that they do not shade each other and it is convenient for the owner to care for them.

Naturally, only a true master who knows how to work with this or that material and has the necessary tools can do this with his own hands.

You can make a bookcase from any more or less durable and workable material, but novice furniture makers should not get carried away with their variety.

For the same purpose, special shelves for flowers are built, but they are, as a rule, stationary, attached to some kind of base, and the shelf is adjustable.

Speaking of practical applications, making a bookcase with your own hands is quite simple. The design consists of two vertical bases and horizontal shelves between them. There are an incredible variety of mounting options and they depend on the material of manufacture.

The easiest way is to screw the shelves to the base from the outside. This assembly method is relevant for wooden shelves. If you think that it will not be beautiful, then we can reassure you, there are plugs for self-tapping screws in different colors.
Each shelf has holes in the corners; posts are inserted into these holes to separate the shelves from each other. Most often, this design is offered for plastic shelves for bathtubs or shoes. But glass shelves can also be organized in a similar way. Dividing posts can be chrome plated. Although metal can also be assembled into a bookcase in a similar way.
The variety of fittings allows you to choose fastening elements hidden in the body of the product.

Shelves assembled using hidden mortise carpentry joints are rarely made independently, and are expensive to sell.

Even today, a shelf can become a key element of interior design.

These are the main examples of whatnot design. You can improvise or use decor. Thus, forged elements can give the simplest and most inexpensive wooden product not only charm, but also luxury.

The most durable is a wooden shelf assembled with an overlay.

Well-made rustic furniture looks amazing and fits into almost any interior, down to the loft.

To the hallway

In a modern hallway, after installing a hanger, wardrobe, key holder and shelves for small items, there is often no space left for a large bookcase. But there is an area of application where a mini-shelf for the hallway is extremely necessary: a shelving unit for everyday, common shoes. Out-of-season shoes are stored in a special shoe rack, but before placing them there, the shoes need to be dried thoroughly.

Improper and correct storage of shoes

There is no need to dry shoes and maintain them as shown on the left in the figure: for shoes to last for a long time, they must dry evenly on all sides; especially from below, from the sole. For this purpose, use special shoe shelves with lattice shelves, on the right in Fig.

Drawings of a shoe rack in the hallway for everyday shoes are given below. rice. Material - scraps of cellular polycarbonate and PVC or metal-plastic pipes in a PVC shell. Both can be purchased cheaply from plumbers and awning, gazebo, and greenhouse specialists. You can also use propylene pipes, but then you will need to drive hardwood bosses into their ends and assemble a shelf with self-tapping screws, because Polypropylene does not stick to anything firmly enough. Holes for pipes are drilled with a Forstner drill or cut with a mounting knife.

Drawings of a shelf for the hallway

If the materials are polycarbonate and PVC, then the shoe rack is assembled using dichloroethane glue: polycarbonate sawdust is dissolved in dichloroethane until the consistency of low-fat kefir or yogurt is obtained. Remember: dichloroethane is a volatile, toxic, flammable liquid and must be handled with the necessary precautions!

Necessary materials

How to make a bookcase with your own hands is clear. You should decide on the materials needed in this matter.

Assembling a plastic shelf bought in a store is as easy as shelling pears; just assemble the “construction set” according to the instructions and use it with pleasure.
When working with wood, in addition to the main material, you will need fastening elements (screws, nails, corners). Let us note that wood is a material subject to mechanical damage: the wood dries out, the wood rots, and insects eat it. To protect your piece of art, you should coat it with varnish or wax. To add color, you can use paint or tints.
If we are talking about metal, then you should study the issue in more detail. In an apartment, an iron shelf can be used quite rarely. There is stainless steel in the kitchen, stainless steel in the bathroom, stainless steel in the hallway. Ferrous metal is only suitable for a tool.
Glass can be a material for shelves, both individually and in the overall design.

It may have four or more legs with shelves between them. As a rule, it does not have back or side walls.

Those who want to learn how to make rustic things are faced, first of all, with two tasks: aging the wood while simultaneously increasing its decorative qualities and surface strength, and also, as regards rack-mounted shelves, adjusting the junction of branch cuts for the racks.

Working with all these materials requires certain skills and tools. What can we say about more complex materials?

A type of shelving made from overlay planks is household frameless (with sidewalls made of one board each) shelving-ladders.

Use decorative forging, ropes or leather inserts

How to make a classic shelving unit with solid walls

Classic shelving is reinforced with a solid frame on the outside, and sometimes also with a back wall. This design will withstand heavy loads, such as full shelves of books.

What do you need

Plywood sheet 2×125×250 cm;
plywood sheet 0.6×125×250 cm;
three slats 2.5x5x250 cm;
one rail 2.5×8×250 cm;
a circular saw;
pencil;
long ruler and tape measure;
jig for drilling ends (if any);
drill with a diameter of 3 mm;
clamps;
drill;
hammer or nail gun;
confirmations and nails;
220 P grit sandpaper;
paint and brush, wallpaper and glue (optional).

How to do

Unfold the plywood sheets and battens onto the following elements.

Frame:

two side walls 2×30×180 cm;
five shelves 2x30x70 cm;
top of the rack 2×30×75 cm;
back wall 0.6×75×180 cm;
bottom plug 2.5×8×70 cm.

Facial finishing:

two vertical slats 2.5×5×170 cm;
two horizontal slats 2.5x5x75 cm.

Let us remind you: if you do not have a circular saw, you can cut the elements to the desired size at a hardware store.