How to Build a Large Set of Built-in Bookshelves

General construction:

- These book cases are made from uprights that are dado-ed to hold the shelves (shelves are fixed, and on this project they are all evenly spaced).

- The uprights are made with 1/2" hardwood plywood, and the shelves are 3/4" hardwood plywood.

- The shelves and the uprights are cut to the same width. You need to take into account the thickness of the back, thickness of the face frames, and extra space to allow for variation in the back wall of the built-in location. In this case, the back is 3/8", the face frames are 1/2", and I allowed 3/8" for wall variation - totalling 1 1/4".

- The dados are 1/8 deep. This is plenty to hold the shelves, and stop them from separating when screwed in place.

When marking the uprights, I draw a line all the way across the board, and mark the dado side with an "X". This helps ensure I am routing in the right spot later.

Once you have marked all the locations, take a look at the overall board to see any mis-markings

Next, I mark the outside of the upright where I am going to nail and screw the shelves together. Marking takes a lot less time than fixing even one wrongly located nail that I have to remove, and then fix the hole.

I made a routing guide to make routing easy and consistent. Make sure the guide is square and fits the router base well (snug, but can still slide)

Align the routing guide to the lines for the dados.

Cut the dados. I used a trim router to do this, since the dados are only 1/8" deep. When possible, I like to use the smaller router for jobs, since it's easier to handle.

Here is a picture of the routed uprights. Once you route them, sand the edges of the cuts to clean them up. The sharper your bit, the less sanding you will have to do.

Tip the upright on its side and attach the shelves. I glue these with wood glue and staple them with 18 age 1/4" crown staples that are 1" long.

Once the shelves are glued and stapled in place, I put in two 1 1/4 screws to keep everything solid while I do assembly.

Once the shelves are screwed in, I lay the upright on its back.

In this position, I attach the other upright - same gluing, nailing and screwing.

Is this over-kill? Maybe, but it allows for easy construction, and I would prefer to over-build a bit and not have any problems later on.

Now I put the back on, which in this case is 3/8" beadboard plywood (Lowes). I cut the plywood to size, glue and staple it in place. I use 3/4" staples, spaced about 8" apart around the perimeter and 6" along each shelf.

Here are two of the units standing side by side. I will make four for this project.

Here is the wall opening for these the shel units. Needless to say, there is a bit of measuring and double-checking that has to go on here.

I allowed 1" side to side and 1/2" at the top on the rough opening. Notice here I lined the opening with sheetrock. The reason was to help stop sound transmission.

The units will go into place with 3/8" thick plywood strips between them as shown. I put the plywood strips (cut to 2 inches wide) along the fronts - glued and stapled, but not in the back. This allows you to flex adjust each unit, to ensure it's aligned properly.

To shim the back of the units to the wall studs, I put a few wood shims in, then spray foamed (Great Stuff), along the length of the studs. This expands the fills the gap solid. I attached the shelf units to each other and the walls with 16 gage air nails (typical for mounting door frames)

Here are all four units intalled. From here, I install the face frames.

First, I naided on the face frame uprights. These are 1 1/2" wide MDF boards. After that, I scribe and mark each cross piece.

I labeled each cross piece to know its location, then marked it. To get a very accurate cut, see my other eHow article "How to Cut a Board or Piece of Trim Accurately".

I installed these with glue and 18 gage nails, then filled the holes with putty and sanded.

Here is the full set installed. It looks like one large unit, since the face frames cover where each segement attaches to the next.

From here, I need to trim out the edges to the sheetrock, using a 1/4" reveal - same as the doors.