A variety of DIY bookcases and bookshelves

As I'm not sure where was the best place for photos, I used the member gallery as it has the most strait-forward mechanism for photo posting. My hobbies over the years have been reading, photography, bicycling and carpentry/woodworking. I'm really glad to have found LT in general and this group in particular as it combines woodcraft and reading. I managed to catalog most of my books b/w commercials during this last NFL playoff season but became overwhelmed at the prospect of doing the same with my wife's- she probably has twice the number I have.

Oh my word, those photos on your profile gallery are your house?! The library is stunning, and I also particularly like the dining room built-ins. I have a lot of bookcases in my house (32, I think), but I am envious of your lovely work!

The library music room looks fantastic! (Though I wouldn't like climbing the ladder.) I like the double bookcase in the TV room, too.

>2 amysisson: Amy- thanks! Like many here, a library area was one of my dreams since the time I was a kid. I'm in awe of how well-read so many LT members are and feel at home with so many fellow bibliophiles. My literacy and book collection pales in comparison to many LTer's but that's what I get for spending so much time on my bike and generating sawdust.

>3 SylviaC: Thank you Sylvia. A geriatrician's response to what's the best thing for seniors to remain in good health was- to stay off ladders. The top step of our ladder is what one of our local surgeons referred to as a neurosurgical height. The height of our bookshelves is our incentive to be careful and stay in good shape.

I just put two pictures of our new shelves on my Member Gallery. The brackets are heavy duty black metal from Home Depot. The boards are pine, with a custom stain (2 Minwax colors mixed together)

@ SaintSunniva. Your spouse did a nice job with the shelves. Also, looks like there is room for more shelves! While also being Catholic, my bookshelves are much more secular than yours. Appropos being married to a Lutheran of half-Norwegian ancestry to find that you are a Catholic Norwegian (uncommon according to my wife).

Yes, Catholic Norwegians are pretty rare -- but not as rare as they used to be. I'm Norwegian on my mother's side.

The Norwegian author best-known outside of Norway is Ibsen, but the second must be Nobel Prize winner Sigrid Undset, author of the Kristen Lavransdatter trilogy and much else, who was a Catholic.

>9 anthonywillard: Just curious, but I thought Ibsen was from Denmark. Maybe before Norway became independent from Denmark?

What a wonderful house you have, an what beautiful work on your shelves. Do they Thomas Moser wing chairs sit well. I've be wanting to buy one as reading chair and can't tell from the photos if they're comfy for long sits.

Yes, that is just a lovely lovely room...Thomas Moser wing chairs...in the library, right? (I don't know my chair designers, but like learning about them!)

And - that is a beautiful stained glass window on the west wall!

>11 yolana: yolana, thanks! Your library and picture gallery evidence a lovely home and family. My first choice for chairs in that room were Freedom Chairs, but that didn't go over well with the spouse. The Moser chairs, for me, don't have sufficient lumbar support to sit for say more than a short period. But I'm also antsy and have a 60 year old back. A foot rest helps a lot.
>12 SaintSunniva: SaintSunniva, good to hear from you! We didn't get around to adult furniture until 5 years ago. Up to then, it's been DIY and 'um-previously owned. I hope to see more LT'ers show their books at home. Also, given your interest in Catholic related literature, I really recommend Walker Percy's biography- Pilgrim in The Ruins.

>13 Marcial87:, thanks for the book recommendation. I like Walker Percy, but haven't read that one...his autobiography?

>14 SaintSunniva: SaintSunniva; Jay Tolson is the author. WP was not much given to talking about himself let alone write an autobiography. He's one of my heroes.

>15 Marcial87:, I'm guessing you've read Percy's Questions They Never Asked Me.

>13 Marcial87: I hear the freedom chairs make up in comfort what they lack for looks. It's too bad about the moser chairs though I suspected it was so. I like the clean modern look of wood chairs so I might try the Oscar from Room and Board.

> A good friend of mine got me into Walker Percy years ago when we were freshmen in college, she even insisted on visiting the Tulane campus when we went to New Orleans for Mardi Gras because it had some sort of connection to him. (He got his MD there or practiced there or something like that?)

>14 SaintSunniva: Actually no, but I googled it yesterday and it definitely has WP's voice. My WP period was in my 20's. I read the biography in the mid-90's. It's seldom long that I go w/o thinking of him or his work. He's on my reading list this year.
>17 yolana: The Moser chairs are a compromise- we use them as dining rm chairs, lounge sitting and for reading. In that capacity they're great. Ideally for reading we would have recliners but in my younger days I swore that I would never own one and I'm nowhere ready to change my mind on that. A footrest would solve their deficiency as a reading chair, but I'm not ready to shell out Moser$ for a matching footrest.
As for WP, like you and your friend, I was introduced to his work in my undergraduate days; as above, time to revisit him- it's been nearly 20 years since I read his biography and 30 years since reading Lost in the Cosmos

>10 SaintSunniva: Ibsen was born in Norway, at Skien, died in Oslo, and was as Norwegian as they come. He wrote his plays in Danish because that was the prescribed literary language in Norway at the time. Norway still maintains a distinction between literary and non-literary Norwegian, and in fact has several differing standards for written Norwegian.

>19 anthonywillard: I thank you for the explanation. I knew, vaguely, about the distinctions within the Norwegian language. My mother, born in the USA to Norwegian parents who came here in the 19-teens, learned the language from her mother and grandmother; when she visited Norway they thought she was Danish.

How's this for the bedroom?

What if you want to read a book on the bottom? :) Neat though! Thanks for sharing.

>21 2wonderY: - I wonder if it would influence your dreams - all those stories beneath you?

Today’s small project. The stairway up to the cape cod style bedroom is enclosed. There is a lot of knotty pine paneling from the 60s, and thank goodness, the last owners painted all of it. And it’s all so bare!
I’ve been meaning to add a display shelf where the drywall and paneling meet. I had pulled the baseboard trim off. Today I trimmed the end to allow for the swing of an awkward storage closet door, sanded the baseboard a little bit and fastened it with screws. Voilà!

>24 2wonderY: Very nice. If it were me, I think I would glue or fix with panel pins a length of beading along the front edge to reduce the risk of things slipping off.
... but books aren't breakable so maybe not. Unless you have cats?

>25 abbottthomas: No cats here. If you look closely, there is a slight depression that runs down the center of the casing. It’s wide and stable enough to assure things won’t tip. I will likely play with it, displaying art, maybe tiles as well. A rotating display.

Neato. Is this a collection? The one book I recognize is Mistress Masham's Repose.

>27 SaintSunniva: Ha ha! It was the collection of books sitting on the steps. The bookshelf at the top of the stairs is full.