Building Shelves

Sometimes building something takes over the whole house, or at least the open spaces in the living room and the kitchen. Our project this past few weeks has been slowly building a new shelving unit for one of my mall spaces.

Since cutting, gluing and painting doesn't make for interesting photos I added this one showing a bit of a painted side and the soon to be bead board backing along with some vintage weekend finds.

I wanted/needed a deeper shelving unit for one of my mall spaces. The depth change is from 10 to 16 inches. 6 inches x 6 shelves = 36" total additional depth x 34.5" length = 1242 square inches of additional space. This is the current shelf, full, with mirror backed shelves. In case you wondered, the maximum depth could only be 16 inches (to match with the other shelving units along the wall).

Measured, drew diagrams (changed depth to 16 inches), checked for appropriate pieces of wood in storage.  

Carried on (and you know DH was doing the building, not me) and found enough boards for the shelves. 

Measured, cut, glued and clamped to make them wide enough. Had to buy pine for the side pieces, cut to width at the hardware store. Added (new) strips to support the shelves (glued, short nailed and screwed in place).

A not useable greenish pine narrow table was taken apart and used in this project too. No photo. Lots of work though. Shelf base was built (by DH). The frame pieces from the greenish pine were used for the base shelf along with a previously used piece of plywood. Then my part of this project (aside from finding, holding, clamping, vacuuming) started. 

Applied water putty on the knots and gouges. Sanded.

I know, a piece of beauty. It does look better after a coat of Shellac Zinsser Bulls Eye 1-2-3 and 3 coats of Behr Premium Plus Ultra Pure White Latex - a garage sale find. Since it is a bottom shelf and will be full of stuff the stains will not show (much).

View of the original top of the pine table that was taken apart and turned into shelf piece below. Shellac, water putty, sanded.

Carried on with the shelves. Measuring, cutting, gluing, clamping, drying, re-cutting to the correct width and then ... Shellac, Zinsser, and Behr (3 coats). 

Won't say more wood stains did not show through but things looked quite white and fresh. To date the shelves are: 2 finished, 4 to get to the shiny white stage.

The inside of the side pieces are finished. Shellac will go on the outsides.

The plan is to attach the sides to the base and the top shelf, add the bead board backs then add/screw down the rest of the shelves once the unit is moved into place. Unit will be 83 inches tall, 36 inches wide, very heavy. Question is, will the new shelving unit fit into the van? I will write about the ending of this project in another post.

Just to finish with something to see besides various boards here is 'stock in progress' (something very familiar to resellers of vintage). Shelf sides made a handy sorting/work space.

Thanks for visiting.

More to come.

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