Bookshelf With Woodcarving

Parents in the school were asked by our teacher if we have an unused bookshelf at home that we can give to the class.
There was no offer, so I step in and offered my garage woodworker ambitions along my non-existing spare time.

Yes, I could do it from less efforts, from less money and most importantly from less time, but I enjoy woodworking.

The school building is from 1930's, so I tried to follow its style. I googled some pictures, and picked some ideas from here and there. Then made some sketches, and also drawed it on computer. I did know that it will change and form a different shape along the road.

I might be wrong with this, but I like to use scrapwood. I like to create something good/new from worthless. I1m not alone with this, but I know that "real" carpenters (around me) work only with good material. I mean dried, selected, quality timber with adequate moisture content, no cupping, warping, no knots, whatever.
Still I find pleasure in using material what no one wants to purchase. My usual sources are carpenters' scrap wood piles and lumber yard, sawmills where I could always find some thrown aside lumbers for cheap or free. It happened in this case again. I could buy a dozen pine boards with big knots, but in good shape, with no bug or fungi problem.

I kept them in my garage to dry them, then I sliced them dropping the bad parts.

Then I planed/jointed them. I know there are different methods to make a board straight and square, but this is how I was taught.
First I choose the side of the board to plane where the rings are concave. Then I plane a square edge to it. The best tool to create a parallel edge is the tablesaw. Then finally I created a parallel side by a thicknesser.

Then I used a lamello machine to be sure that board sides will be on the same plane.

I used PUR glue the first time. I had a lot of work to clean the overflows of it.

As usually, one of my little helpers sneaked out to the cool shop from warm house barefooted, in thin clothing. So I shared my sweater with her, and she could help me in this step.

I planned to use simple tenon and mortise joints, but I'm not yet experienced in it, and my finished mortises became a bit loose. No problem, I could turn them to wedged tenon and mortise joints.

I do not suggest you to make woodcarving on pine.

It was a pain.
But my family liked it, so all the efforts were worth it.

I used carving knife, chisels and also a dremel on this.

First I put on a layer of heavily diluted lacquer, then I sanded it with 80, then 120, and finally with 180 grit.

As usual, it was a lot of sanding.

I didn't dare to use PUR wood glue again, because of the cleaning process. Instead I used a water based one. And I used all of my clamps.

I hand sanded the whole surface with 240 grit, then I put on three layers of transparent satin lacquer.
The kids liked it, and my daughter was in heaven. I was amply paid with her pride on me.