Home Library Bookcases and Cabinets Room Renovation

This is the Sketchup rendering I did of what II wanted the room to look like when completed.

• 3/4" Furniture grade Birch ply
• 3/4" MDF
• 1"x3", 1"x4" Pre primed pine
• crown molding
• Panel Molding
• Base caps
• Chop saw
• table saw
• Drill press
• Rosette bit
• nail guns
• 18 gauge finish nails
• Pin nailer
• Pin nails
• Wire wheel
• Wire brush
• screw gun
• Kreg pocket hole jig
• Wood glue
• Liquid Nail Construction adhesive
• Rustoleum Clear spray paint
• Zinsser Bullseye Primer
• Benjamin Moore Paint
• Sketchup CAD program

This is an empty 13'x16' room in our house, that was used as a make shift library/ formal living room without much storage for books. It had a piano and a gas fireplace with an antique mantle (1860's) from my great grandfathers house. The floors are Heart Pine. My wife has a lot of books stored in boxes and I wanted to create a special room for her to enjoy all her reading treasures.

All of the bookcases and lower cabinets are constructed in my basement shop made from 3/4" furniture grade birch plywood and pre-primed 1"x3" pine. The plywood was cut to size and the shelves are inset using a Dado blade set to the right size. Then glued and screwed into place from the outside so all fasteners are hidden. The back is 1"/4" plywood that is glued and screwed to the outside frame and shelves. Pine face frames are made with a Kreg pocket hole jig and glued and again pocket hole screwed to the case. Also nailed with 18 gauge finish nails. This gives the shelves strength for the heavy books that will rest on them.

Once all the moldings were removed from the room I followed my build plan for locations of the lower cabinets. The cabinets and bookcases were built in small manageable sections as I was doing this all alone.

Again The bookcases were built in small manageable sections so they could be moved and installed all by myself. I am a one man show!

The sides of the entry are covered with this raised panel detail I made from 1"x3" primed pine and 3/4" MDF as it routers clean and is smooth for this application. I do NOT recommend using MDF for anything that entails strength! Its great for decoration but NOT as a shelf as it has no tensile strength and will sag under any weight.

To tie it all together so it looks seamless I add the base moldings, Plinths blocks and detail molding.

Prime and paint everything with a good primer. I use Zinsser Bulls eye water based primer and Benjamin Moore semi gloss Mayonnaise.

I added a simple double panel wainscot to the walls using 1"x4" primed pine and Panel molding. The 1"x4" pine frames were all pocket hole jigged and glued together so there is no expansion cracks. The frames are glued to the walls with Liquid Nail construction adhesive and finish nailed into the studs when possible. The Wainscot really ties it all together. The look goes a long way to make this room elegant. Painted the Same color as the shelves with Ben Moore Semi gloss Mayonnaise.

The Coffered ceiling was a must to bring it all together. The beams were made from 1"x4" pine in my shop. I used a biscuit jointer and wood glue and clamped them together and nailed together with 2" finish nails. I attached 2"x4" studs to the ceiling into the joists with screws and then simply slide the beam covers over 2"x4" studs and attached using a finish nailer with 2" finish nails. Using my drill press and a rosette bit I created a rosette detail to go into the intersections. They were glued and pin nailed in place.

Long ago when I built the house (22 Years ago) I knew I would be doing this at some point and I installed 1/4 plywood under the sheet rock on the ceiling so I could someday install a tin ceiling using screws. This is that someday! I got my hands on some 100 year old tin. It has seen better days as it has several coats of paint on it. I set out with a wire brush to clean off the lose old paint and the plan was to prime and paint white. Instead once I saw the colors come out I changed my mind. I liked the distressed vintage look that told its history. so I continued to wire brushed all the loose paint off the panels and then sealed it with a few coats of Rustoleum clear gloss lacquer. I cut the tin to size and used Liquid Nail construction adhesive and some fine screws painted to match the tin to install. I then finished off the inside edges with 3" crown molding. I added new 4" LED Can lights and cut out the tin around them to fit. Finished the ceiling with a new chandelier.

Instead of purchasing expensive ladder hardware I made my own. I used old iron sliding door track brackets from the 1950's I had laying around. Black pipe from Lowes. I steel wheeled everything to get paint, dirt and grime off. I measured the book case to know where the brackets would need to fall then replicated on my shop wall so everything could be welded up in the right spot and nice and straight. The track is 15" long. It was painted with Rust-Oleum Pewter.

This is an old Western Electric ladder that actually had two sides connected at the top to form an "A" frame type ladder that was used in the warehouse. It is 13' feet tall. Needed to cut it down to 8'.

I took the ladder completely apart and cut 5' feet off. Every thing was sanded lightly with 220 grit sand paper.

The handle also had to be cut down. All the parts were cleaned up and painted with Rust-Oleum Pewter paint.

All the parts were individually finished with 3 coats of Minwax Polyurethane. After the first and second coat everything was lightly sanded to smooth out any bubbles and raised grain. Then the 3rd finish coat was applied. I found an old set of wheels on Ebay I thought looked cool. I wire wheeled them, painted and added thick black rubber from Grainger to the wheels. The metal was painted the same as the rest of the metal using Rustoleum Pewter paint. I created a mount for them out of Black Walnut.

This room has become the favorite spot in the house. A comfortable spot to sit in front of the fire and relax, great for all the family pictures and especially for all my wifes 1000 plus books!