Hardwood Shelves

When you graduate from milkcrates, but cannot bring yourself to buy disposable Ikea furniture for ethical, environmental, or repressed-childhood-memories-of-parents-who-loved-the-Swedish-crap reasons, build some hardwood shelves. Woodworking is often relaxing, and you'll end up with hand-made furniture you can be proud of.

Go to a nice lumber store and get some hardwood. In the Bay Area I go to PALS and buy certified hardwood. Certified means that the wood was grown and harvested in a sustainable way.

The wood will be measured in board feet. Roughly, a board foot is a measure of volume equal to 144 cubic inches; however, as with any trade specific measurement, it's not quite that simple. Rounding errors need to be dealt with properly.

The wood will be bowed and crowned. You can fix this with a jointer. Next use a thickness planer to make all the pieces the same thickness. I skipped this step because I don't have these tools.

Rip the wood to the same width using a table saw. Make a smooth flat cut on one side of all the pieces. Set a stop just thinner than the thinnest piece and rip all the pieces to the same thickness cutting on the opposite side.

I like lots of low, narrow bookshelves. I usually aim for two shelves 23 inches wide, 12.5 inches tall, and around 8 inches deep. This yields an overall shelf 28 inches tall and 25 inches wide.

Use a miter saw with a sharp blade. A blade in nearly any condition will cut pine from Home Depot, but hardwood is much easier to burn.

I like to hide the end grain on my shelves, so I cut the outside pieces on a 45 degree angle.

Layout the shelves to check all the dimensions and mark attachment points. You can connect the piece with wood screws, but I prefer using a biscuit (or plate) joiner because there are no external marks.

Cut the slots for the biscuits.

Put in the biscuits and pre-assemble to check all the joints.

I use a set of tie-down clamps to avoid damaging the corners of the wood.

I like to be able to see the color of the wall behind a bookshelf, so instead of a solid back, I put a 2 inch high back-stop, which is also attached by biscuits.

Sand all the faces of the pieces, but not the edges. Save the edges until after it is assembled, so you can smooth corners that are not quite a perfect fit.

I use 100 grit paper with a pad sander.

Glue and clamp the back-stop first.

Use a piece of scrap wood to prevent the clamps from damaging the wood surface. When these are dry, glue and assemble the whole shelf.

The tie-down clamps come in very handy here. Again, be really careful not to nick or dent the wood. It?s a lot harder to fix once glued.

Make sure you have all the necessary clamps, tie-downs, paper towels, and scrap wood ready before you put glue on the biscuits.

Sand the edges smooth with 100 grit paper paying special attention to the interfaces.

Hand sand the entire project using 220 grit.

Test your choice of stain on a scrap piece of sanded hardwood.

Remove all dust from the shelves.

Stain the wood according to the stain's directions. Typically you brush the stain on and let it sit for a period of time before wiping it off with a rag.