Library Book Shelves Part 2

[nelsonic]

Having recently installed the 9 bookshelves in the library #179 and unpacked a few boxes of books:

I’ve realised that we have accumulated “too many” books and need more shelf space.

Note: Yes, it may look like we still have a couple of “empty” shelves in this picture. But they are already pre-destined for children’s books which we already have enough of to cover one of the shelves and we expect to acquire plenty more in the next couple of years. We cannot put “non kid” books on these bottom shelves as our 👼 will investigate (destroy) them.

So I’m considering putting another set of shelves on the south wall next to the entrance of the library:

The wall is 112cm wide so 60% of the width of the North wall. It would give us a chance to have taller shelves for hardbacks and cook/recipe books which apparently are all too tall for the next week costing shelves, hence the horizontally stacked books …

@iteles thoughts?

Edit: A bit more detail:

1. Given that the width of the wall is only 112cm wide it means the pieces can fit in our micro-car. e.g: https://github.com/dwyl/home/issues/184#issuecomment-938179260 so there are no dependencies on having access to a bigger car or renting a van.
2. This will give me a chance to test my revised design which will be (a) faster and less frustrating to build and (b) hopefully easier to keep level.
3. The cost will be around €65 (one sheet 15mm Birch Ply) of materials and T8h in time.

Proposed Production Plan

• [x] Measure and re-measure the space at various points on the wall to confirm width and height
• [x] Sketch out new design and confirm that it will work by doing a mini test in the workshop
• [x] Design
  • [x] Prepare cutting list

    Yes, I know the Leroy PlyWood isn't great quality #123 ... but the result on the existing Library shelves https://github.com/dwyl/home/issues/179#issuecomment-1046326147 is more than good enough for storing books and it means we don't have waste time ordering/transporting/managing/cutting full sheets and can get this done much faster. + Print cutting list on Epson EcoTank printer (printed is much easier for the Leroy person than trying to give them a screen to read off ...)

• [x] Buy Materials --> I found enough 15mm Birch Plywood pieces in the workshop to make the shelves so skipped the trip to the hardware/lumber store and just got started with the build phase!
  • [x] Prepare the workshop for the new project! Take the cutting list to Leroy Get ticket for wood cutting service first to avoid waiting Select the best looking + flattest plywood sheet from their stock Wait patiently for turn ... Give cutting list and plywood sheet to Leroy employee and explain importance of the order of cuts (to avoid material wastage!)

    Note: the material width is 125 cm so they will need to do a length cut first. I intend to use this 4cm "off-cut" as part of the design. So this cut needs to be done first. 💭 Gather cut pieces and place on trolley and take to checkout for payment. Load cut materials into car & drive home. Unload materials & prepare for processing!

• [x] Build!
  • [x] Cut the 8 shelves to size
  • [x] Cut the strips that will be screwed to the walls
  • [x] Route a 15mm groove through the centre of the wall-mounting strips for slotting the triangular support
  • [x] Cut and sand 16 support brackets --> made these from offcuts. 🙌
  • [x] Measure the positions of the brackets on the strips
  • [x] Drill & countersink holes just above shelf position in the strips for wall mounting.
  • [x] Glue and brad-nail the triangular supports in place and leave to cure overnight.
• [x] Installation
  • [x] Mount the vertical strips to the wall
• [x] Finishing
  • [x] Round the edges of the bottom 6 shelves so people walking in/out of the library don't encounter sharp corners see: https://github.com/dwyl/home/issues/190#issuecomment-1049339523
  • [x] Cut concentric circle hole in 4 of the shelves to hold pot plants, see: https://github.com/dwyl/home/issues/190#issuecomment-1052677225
• [x] Measure locations for installation cut-outs on shelves in-situ to ensure they fit.
  • [x] Cut the fitting grooves with jigsaw
  • [x] Drill mounting holes 2 per shelf for holding the shelf in place (in addition to the glue)
• [x] Mount & glue the shelves in place

[iteles]

Yes, 100%.

We also need a space higher up in the current shelves for kids books that will get destroyed by little hands who can reach the first two shelves too (thin pages, etc for older kids).

We should have a think about the bottom shelves here. They might be a better spot for a couple of baskets of things that can't get destroyed or closed boxes.

[nelsonic]

@iteles is there anything else @home related that you feel is a higher priority or should I focus on this so we can get the Library done and dusted? Design phase will be around T1h.

[iteles]

I think the library should be the highest priority. It would be awesome to call it done and it makes a biiiiig difference to the box situation 😉

[nelsonic]

@iteles Glad you're on-board with this extension. 🙌 Glad you agree that finishing the library is a priority and will make a big diff. 📚 We're skipping the first step in the KonMari Method ... But tidying the books and having the entrance of the house free of boxes will be good.

With the knowledge we have gained from building the first set of shelves, we can make a far more informed choice about the dimensions & design for the next set. I was thinking of making them all 30cm deep and 32cm tall so that all the Cook books and coffee-table size books will fit. But on the off-chance that we have even taller books, do you think we should have a 33 or 34cm tall shelf? and if so how high up should it be? e.g. if we made the 5^th Shelf 34cm tall it would give us more flexibility.

As noted above, we could prep the Design for this pretty quick. 🧑‍💻 (e.g. T1h tonight after 👼 goes to bed...)

[nelsonic]

Using the laser level (accurate to 1mm) I Tokyo multiple readings for the width of the section of wall I intend to cover with books:

the safe option is to round down to 112mm as noted above. And then align to the left of the wall during installation.

also measured the the height and the ceiling is lower on the south side of the room compared to the north … 🙄

Armed with these two measurements I’m going to prep the 2D design & cutting list.

[nelsonic]

The height is 2670mm (rounded down) minus 100mm for Roomba clearance which gives us: 2570mm. 2570 / 320 = 8.03 i.e. exactly 8 shelves.

Going to make the eye-height shelf 280mm high so that the shelf below that can be 340mm. 280mm is more than enough height for the vast majority of books.

Was thinking of getting a single sheet of 8 x 4 (2500 x 1220) 15mm Birch Plywood: https://www.leroymerlin.pt/Produtos/Madeiras-acrilicos/Paineis-construcao/Paineis-contraplacado/WPR_REF_18896675

However ... found 5 sheets of 1200 x 600 x 15mm Birch Ply in the wood rack which is perfect for this project. 🙌 Going to crack on with cutting it down to size this evening. 🤞 But sadly I don't have T8h to finish this today. ⏳

[nelsonic]

I’ve made decent progress this evening. More than half way there. It helps that the design is considerably simpler and has built-in “error-correction”. 🙌 It will be pretty much ready to install tomorrow if I get time during the day (e.g 5 mins at lunch break to drill the 16 holes). Otherwise only next week. 🤞

@iteles quick question: should I round the corners of the shelves that will be near the entrance/doorway to mitigate people walking into it and hurting themselves? 💭 It adds a ~ T1h to the project build time as there is also sanding and round-over routing required, but it will mean that people walking past are less likely to hurt themselves… Please LMK your thoughts? 🙏

[iteles]

I think this would make it look amazing! If you don't mind the extra hour, I think it would also be piece of mind for parents of kids rounding that corner at speed. We don't want A to take an eye out!

[nelsonic]

Ok, cool. I will add an extra 6 cuts to round all the shelves below 2m such that there are no sharp edges for anyone to hurt themselves on. 👍🏻

@iteles do you have any preference for the radius of the corner? 🪚

[nelsonic]

Managed to get the rounded corners cut and installed all the shelves today: 🙌

@iteles please give feedback and if OK, we can close this issue. 🙏

[nelsonic]

Made circular holes in 4 of the shelves for pot plants: 🪴

This photo isn't great. But you get the idea. 💭

[nelsonic]

Really looking forward to having all our books unpacked and stored on the shelves. 🙌 Think we can get this done on tomorrow evening with T2h of cleaning and unpacking. ⏳

[iteles]

Super excited about this. They look amazing with the plants! 😍

Can you please leave the rest of the books to me? We'll get the room properly cleaned today and then tomorrow I can focus on this (I estimate 3 hours but I haven't done it in a while!) :tada:

[nelsonic]

@iteles glad you're excited about having an organised library. 🎉 Happy to leave the remaining boxes for you to unpack. 👍 I'm equally keen to get a decision on what we're doing with the excess boxes: #191 📦

[nelsonic]

https://twitter.com/bcredibility

[nelsonic]

@Stephanymtr want to take & upload a photo of the south wall bookshelf in it's current state? 🙏 📚

[Stephanymtr]

South wall bookshelf + plants. I just watered them. They are happy again.

[nelsonic]

Sweet. Thanks. We can take a more pics once the shelves are fully populated. 👍

[nelsonic]

On the morning of March 24th I woke to a loud crashing noise. The heavy ("coffee table") books on the 5th Shelf were too much for the "minimalist" shelf brackets and they had caused a material failure in the shelf taking out shelves 4 and 3 on the way down:

It was a mess but thankfully: a) nobody was around for any books (or pot plants) to fall on 😥 b) none of the pot plants broke and no books were damaged.

It was a good lesson in material strength/weakness and a good reminder to over engineer things instead of making them "minimalist" ... 🙄 I take full responsibility even though on close inspection, the material failed where I'm sure a better quality of plywood #123 would not have had the same issue.

As you can see from this photo the shelves ripped the plywood apart (delaminated it):

The actual strip of plywood split:

I did a full analysis of the material at the time and concluded that it would not have happened if I had used screws. The glue was fine, but it only adhered to the surface of the ply so the actual bonding of the ply was the weakest point. With screws it would have been a lot stronger.

Didn't want to post the photos of the "failure" until I had fixed the issue. ⏳

I re-made the strips that failed and this time I added screws from the wall side so they are extra strong. But I didn't stop there. I made super over-engineered wall brackets #196 which are attached to the wall with 4 plugs+screws rated for 50kg each. The wall brackets are what are providing most of the strength to the newly re-installed shelves:

See: #196

@iteles back to you to stack the books the way you want them. 📚

[nelsonic]

Closing as this portion of the project is complete. ✅ We still have to organise the books on the shelves ...📚 But we have a new task for that: #216 ⏳