Carpentry and Woodworking - Built-in bookcase help

In my office/library, I have a indentation that's suppose to be for a built-in bookcase. It is about 5'8'' wide and recessess back about 13 inches. However, the corners aren't straight, so the opening varies a bit. The width can go from 68" to 68 3/4" and the depth can vary from 13" to 13 1/2". How do I use straight wood and still conceal the expose gaps? Should I cover the back wall with wood or leave the drywall expose and paint it with semi-gloss as the wood? How are the center supports anchored to the back wall so shelving can be used. Is there a video or step-by-step available?

Well, M blake

I'm going to be your best video tape that wont cost you a dime. I know EXACTLY to a "T" of what you're trying to do because I've made several units in niches like you're talking about.

Can you fax me a drawing of the idea you're going for? And maybe a picture of the space. "Pic not necessary, but helpful.

With niches, you don't build the unit from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, you make the front of the unit return to the exterior face of the drywall.

If you don't understand, let me know

By returning the cabinet to the face of the wall, you're not dealing with fitting the actual cabinet wall to wall and floor to ceiling. You'll be making your cabinet a few inches less in height and about 1" less in width. One thing to consider when doing a floor to ceiling unit, is to make sure that you can tip up the unit in the room and not hit the ceiling. Wouldn't that ruin your day!!! :) There is a mathamatical equation that will tell you how tall and how deep/or wide of a cabinet you can make.

A Squared + B Squared = C Squared

If the celing is 96" and the depth of your wall is 14" with the cabinet sticking out infront of the wall a few inches, the tallest cabinet you could make would be about 94" x 16" Deep Give or take, because of how out of level the floor or ceiling may be.


A-94x94=8,836 B-16x16=256 C=8,836+256 then = then {squared button} which will tell you the height the cabinet will be when tipped up from corner to corner which is 95-5/32" "Almost 3/8" :::95.351979::

Understand? :cool:

Thanks again for replying,

I'm really comfused now. I've gone into a few model homes to get ideas and to see how thing were made and it seems that they took some wood for each side of each compartment and either drilled some peg-holes or used pre-drilled boards. When I felt the back of the bookcase it seemed to be a thin piece of wood like birch or something. They had divided the overall width into two to three compartments, each having several shelves. This all sat on top of a board running length-wise and that was used for the top of a cabinet space with four to six cabinet doors. One unit even had sliding shelves inside the cabinet.

Your approach is to make a bookshelf that fits inside the space. It seems that it would be the best looking approach, but the hardest one to tackle. Your thoughts.

Thanks,

Mike Blake

mblake-

Once, I built a cabinet like you describe that had the face frame flush with the walls. It was pretty tricky and reinforced the old saying that you measure twice (or more) and cut once.

I made the carcass slightly smaller (~1/2") than the opening on the sides and short enough to allow me to tip it into place (~7'-10").

Then, I built the face frame so that it was slightly wider than the opening.

I set the carcass into the opening and had helpers hold the faceframe in position so I could make reference marks on the walls and faceframe.

Then, I removed the carcass and had my helpers hold the face frame in place using the reference marks. I went into the niche and marked the back of the faceframe along the edges of the walls. I used a sabre saw to trim the face frame to my marks then attached the faceframe to the carcass.

When I slid the cabinet into place, a little careful sanding in a few places made it fit beautifully.

Like I said at the beginning, this was a tricky bit of work and took quite a while, but it worked.

Personally, I would follow Furniture Bldr's advice and let the face frame back up the the walls. It's much, much easier and would probably look great.

What about using straight pegged boards and attaching the them to the side-walls? Making sure to make the shelfs at least and inch shorter in depth. Use quarter-round mounding along the outside corners to cover the gaps, then cover the moulding with trim running along the sides and the top.

Maybe I'm seeing things, but it seems that all of the model homes just attached the peg boards right to the walls. I just can't figure out how the center supports are attached to the back wall. It doesn't appear that they are toe-nailed because when I look very closely I can see the fasteners on the other boards but not on the center supports.

Mike Blake

When you say center supports, do you mean the vertical member? If you cant move it right and left and there are no nails or screws top and bottom, they could have routed out the top and bottom, drilled a hole to accept a spoon pin and slid the center divider on it.

If you try to scribe a cabinet to the "Inside" of the opening, you're going to be there all day long. One other way of doing it is the following:

Make the cabinet 1" less than the opening width and 1/2" less the depth. Adjust accordingly for the height. Set the cabinet so it sits flush with the front of the opening leaving a gap on each side. Take some type of casing, "WINDOW CASING" and frame the cabinet out like a window. Thus will cover the opening and imperfections of the wall not being square.

That would be even easier

Mblake,

Just wondering how your decision process is comming along about how youre going to tackle this project