This is probably something basic that all you guys know how to construct/design but I’m not sure exactly how to go about it or which way will be the strongest.
I want to build one book shelf (9 1/2″ deep) that runs along an entire room, one books height from the ceiling. Going for the crown molding book shelf look I guess. Because of doors, closets and windows I would like to have the brackets above the shelf and hidden by the books………a floating book shelf?
Would it be structurally sound if I used metal brackets, mounted above the shelf and attached to the studs?
I have some 3/4″ pine boards that I was gonna use with the brackets 16 O.C., is that spacing correct for the material? Would deflection be a problem?
Below the shelves I would install some moulding to make the transition from verticle to horizontal (similar to the effect that crown has). I would think that the crown would not be able to provide any support to the shelf, and that all the support would come from the brackets.
I am going to paint the shelves white to match the trim in the room, FYI.
Is this possible?
Does anybody have any advice/experience/photos to help me out with?
I’ve rambled to long……..
Replies
Build a torsion box shelf and attach it like a fireplace mantle. Since you're goign to turn corners with it, it shhould be very strong and stable.
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Thanks for the reply. Is there a minimum thickness for a torsion box?
I Think your plan will yield a seriously sturdy bookshelf. Brackets every 16" should be plenty. However, I would consider using plywood instead since pine boards may tend to warp or cup.
Edge-banding that much plywood shelving would be a bit more work than just painting 1 X 10 pine, but I think it's worth it.
Aesthetically, a 3/4" shelf will not appear very substantial. If you used 2 layers of 1/2" or even 3/4" plywood, the shelf would look much beefier. No structural differences here, I'm just talking about "looks"
I like the idea of the crown molding under the shelf. Don't forget to caulk all the gaps before painting. (prime first, then caulk, then paint)
-Don
I like the idea about two layers and an edge band. Could I use one layer of the 3/4 pine and one layer of the 1/2 plywood? I have the pine allready, it was free. Would I still have movement issues?
My vote goes with 3/8" thick x 2" wide x 6" long (each leg) angle brackets inlet into the sheetrock and the tops (or bottoms) of your shelves on each stud. 1/4" brackets would probably work fine, but if they flex and crack the sheetrock you haven't saved much so I'd rather overbuild it. Bondo to hide the brackets and patch the sheetrock so it all disappears. It sounds like a lot of supports, but we are talking about a bookshelf and hanging the shelves this way isn't the most secure.
As for solid materials, 5/4 is much, much better than 3/4, both for looks as well as the beef needed for a continuous book shelf to stay straight. Keep in mind that any edge droop or waviness will be quite easy to see against the straight crown and ceiling line, much more so than a little dip in a short shelf. 6/4 is ok, but reminds people too much of framing lumber unless a good edge detail is used to mask away the resemblance.
If you find a molding that looks good for the edges, then going thicker than 5/4" isn't as bad and you could then get away with two layers of 3/4" birch ply with the molding wrapping the edges.
I'd suggest making a corner section mockup finished exactly how you've imagined it covering 4'-8' or so in order to see it built before committing to doing all. We do this all the time for clients and half the time the dimensions are changed one way or another. It's just too hard to visualize a style element that isn't common, such as your bookshelf and how it interacts with the rest of the room.
My suspicion is that the size of crown needed to visually support the shelf is more than what first comes to mind by a notch or two. It's human nature to expect things to be supported by something and a tiny crown might look out of place with such projects. You'll know as soon as a mock up is completed and painted if something isn't quite right.
Having said that, I have seen simple shelves jutting out of the wall, as if it's the edge of a much larger board that we're seeing that look quite ok with no trim. Also, sheetrocked ledges can look fine with no trim and being 2-1/2-3" thick. Sometimes a continous shelf might look better and other situations may benefit from 4'-8' sections that vary in elevation and/or depth.
A second issue that is common with such spaces is the amount of dark space above the shelf. Just as with kitchen cabinets, light won't be able to reach above the books as well as the underside of the shelf and significant dark spots will occur unless the light of your room is much better than most. Again, the mock up will show how severe this problem is.
If light issues are significant and you're committed to the design, perhaps a simple rope light would cast enough light to take care of the worst shadows. It's possible to inlet the rope light into a dado so it's flush with the top of your shelf, although it will have to work under or around the support brackets and there needs to be room behind the books for it to work. Also, there are high output rope lights that are roughly twice as bright, which would be my choice.
Not to sound pesimistic, since I'm usually the first in line to build other's unique ideas, but these type of projects need to be approached with caution since what seems quite simple can easily fail to live up to expectations without a little planning and experimentation. It' much better to spend an entire day (or three!) building a few mockups than finish the whole kit-n-cabootle only to dislike the results and tear it all out in a year. If it's questionable at first glance I'd recommend leaving the mockup in place for a week or longer and see if the design grows on you or not after making any obvious improvements.
Cheers,
Don
Edited 2/12/2006 12:48 pm ET by IdahoDon
Did you say "one book's height from the ceiling"?
That sounds like an interesting detail, but way too high for books. How will someone get up there to pull a book off the shelf and caress it? How will someone clean up there?
BUT, let's just say you go ahead with it - as a rule of thumb, 4/4 shelving can span 30" for books. How about you paint rectangular blocks of wood, maybe 9"x10" (some shorter, some taller) so the look from one edge like the spine of a book. Pocket screw those blocks perpendicular to the wall, then screw and plug your shelf to the bottom horizontal edge of the block. Now you can use those blocks to lean books against and at a glance they look like another book in the collection.
Hey. You might even use old book jackets to cover those blocks instead of painting...yeah, that'd work, much easier than all that painting and would look better, too.
Anyways, then you'd have what really looked like a "floating" shelf. TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
Yep, one books height, that's yankee for 11":0)
Sorry, could have been more accurate........
The fake book/bracket is a pretty cool idea (you are serious.....right....or.....was that a joke....). Would that be strong enough?
What material could I use, ply or pine, I've got a ton of scraps of each.
"you are serious.....right...."
Serious as a Claymore mine.
"What material could I use, ply or pine..."
I guess I'd prefer plywood in most instances, more stable, straighter, stronger. I'm not a big fan of pine, pretty unstable and lots of pitch in it, at least the pine we get out here in Washington. Knots want to bleed through paint, too.TIPI,TIPI,TIPI!
"Serious as a Claymore mine."
That is serious........
I ran the idea about the camouflage book brackets by my wife........she thought it would look cool but was a little uneasy about tearing apart books.....she loves books.
I might have to wait till she's not looking........
Good call with the mockups. You bring up some interesting points about the shadow lines. More stuff to think about..............
What shape is the room in now? Studs? Sheetrock? Fully painted?
Also, flat, cathedral or barrel ceiling? How high up is the ceiling?
1 - measure the board twice, 2 - cut it once, 3 - measure the space where it is supposed to go 4 - get a new board and go back to step 1
Edited 2/12/2006 1:58 pm ET by Ricks503
The ceiling is flat.
Have you ever built a curved ceiling using 1x3 cedar boards, in a bathroom?
I remember an article in FHB with a picture of a bathroom that had a curved ceiling. It gave the details on how it was built, right below the existing sheetrock using 2x10's? with an arc cut out of them, attached to the wall studs. Just wondering if anybody has done that and the pro's and con's they encountered.
The room is about 10x12, less a 3x4 section for the basement stairs to the left of the door to get into the room. A small room, early 70's 1000 sqft ranch. It'll be the study/library/computer room. It's sheetrocked over 2x4 studs, walls and ceiling. Painted with green walls, white ceiling and white trim. Hard wood floors. Because the room is so small and we have so many books (my wife's father collected books about building boats, all books about boats really. He was a naval architect.) I wanted to get as many books up of the floor so that if we needed to move furniture around we would still have as much floor space as possible.
Hope that info helps.
I have used two different methods in building things like your shelf project. Both are planned up front, because things are built into the rough framing.
One is to bolt 1x1x1/8 steel angle to each wallstud, aligning them carefully using something like a laser, and the cantilevering angles are then built into the shelf structure, a hollow shelf of 1/2" plywood top, 1/4" plywood bottom, and a 1-3/4" hardwood edge facing. The 1" corespace contains the angles, their sidepieces of 1" wide by 1/2" thick baltic birch, and similar baltic birch pieces on 12" spacing as core webs.
A very clean contemporary look.
Another method is to ensure there is blocking above the ceiling wallboard or finish, into which hanger studs are driven on 24 inch centers. I get the studs from Lee Valley, the kind with typical hanger woodscrew threads on the drive-in end, and a female 1/4-20 cup on the other end, for receiving a threaded 1/4-inch steel rod.
A little wood button is used as an escutcheon plate where the ceiling is pierced by the hanger rod. I put the buttons up with glue, and masking tape holds them in place until the glue cures.
The hanger rods pierce the shelf, and a nut and washer on the bottom fastens it to shelf core parts. The bottom skin of the shelf is put on last to hide the works.
Almost as clean a look as the first method, providing the rods are evenly spaced, and painted to match the ceiling color.
Wow, those sound like some sound shelves:), But my room is allready finished, sounds like alot of ripout work.
I really like the first technique, with the angle set in the wall..........is the shelf a torsion box?
More stuff to think about............never ending this design/planning stuff.
Thanks for the feed back.
I did this using 2x10's going the full length around all 4 corners of my 12x12 office. I rested it on the tops of the window trim and door trim, and I bolted the corners together with 3/8" bronze bolts. In a couple of long stretches where there was no door or window, I nailed molding to the wall under the shelf.
The 2x10's weren't dry enough when I built it so two of the four sides twisted a bit as they dried out, and with the heavy books they still bowed a bit in the middle, perhaps only due to their not being totally dry, or perhaps because they were pine 2x10's.
Your braces sound like a better idea. And make sure the wood you use is dry.
thanks for the reply, what type of molding did you use under the shelf in the long spans? Did you square the edge of the 2x10, attach a trim piece or leave it alone?
The molding looked something like the cock bead picture which is attached:
View Image
It was about 1 1/4 x 1 1/2 or so.
I sanded the edges and rounded them a bit, but did not try to trim it.