Bookcases and a media center

Thanks for sharing. They look good and are functional. What are they made out of?

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

I think I have that many books!!

I bet they are pleased.

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

All pieces are made from birch plywood. I had originally planned on using MDF, but then I remembered I still had to move them out of the basement and around town. The customers insisted that there be no face frame, they wanted a simple look to the whole project. Luckily they understood that longer lengths of shelves w/o face frame equals saggy shelves so they wanted shorter shelves.
After I installed them they said they’ll probably have another job for me later in the year when they have another shipment of books sent over from Romania. This is about half of the books they had in the house already!! I can’t imagine how many more they could have in storage.

-- Straight grains & sharp blades

With all those books, who has time to watch TV?

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

Good job, Matt.

-- Fred Childs, Pasadena, CA - - - Law of the Workshop: Any tool, when dropped, will roll to the least accessible corner.

Nice job Matt. Keeping the shelves short to prevent sagging was definitely smart. But you really nailed the dimensions to create pleasing proportions on your boxes.

One of the painters I know uses enamel paint for the color, but for durability uses a clear waterbase polyurethane or floor type finish. It keeps the books from getting stuck to the paint.

-- Todd A. Clippinger, Montana, http://amcraftsman.com

Thank you everyone, it felt like this project took forever so all your kind comments made it worthwhile. Oh yeah, and the client liked it too.

-- Straight grains & sharp blades

I can relate to the book shelf project. Yours came out real nice, very clean design, good job Matt.

-- Just another day in paradise.

Hi Matt,

I pulled this one from the archives. You did a good job with the construction and finish. You executed a nice design as well. If the client liked it then that is all that counts (especially since she happens to be your boss). :)

Thanks for the post.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

Thanks again for the nice comments on the bookshelves. I have to admit there was a great deal of sweating bullets on this project. I never attempted anything this big before, not meant in the dimensional big, but the overall big LOL!!

Still the experience was more than worth it!

-- Straight grains & sharp blades

Know what you mean. So clean simple looking when it’s done. A lot of work. Great , beautiful, very zen.

-- mtnwild