I Kinda Can’t Believe This Worked… – Bookshelf Design, Part 3

With the piles of ready-to-shelve books growing and a sufficiently large sample size ready for processing (~45.7% measured!) I decided to go ahead and see about making a smaller bookcase for underneath the window in the study while continuing the planning for the semi-built-in shelves in the other… okay, almost literally all of the other rooms.

A quick trip to the database gave me:

SELECT
	height_scrubbed AS "Height"
,	width_scrubbed AS "Width"
,	SUM(thickness_scrubbed) AS "Shelf Length"
,	COUNT(1) AS "Number of Books"
FROM
	library
WHERE
	collections !~ 'Shelved'
GROUP BY
	1, 2
ORDER BY
	3 DESC

Height	Width	Shelf Length	Number of Books
9.0	6.0	68.125	87
6.75	4.1875	62.25	63
8.25	5.5	53.3125	62
8.0	5.1875	47.875	58
8.0	5.25	39.5625	51
8.0	5.3125	38.75	48
10.1875	6.625	37.0625	103
7.8125	5.0625	35.8125	35
6.75	4.125	35.4375	33
7.75	5.125	29.9375	26
6.875	4.1875	27.625	30
7.75	5.0625	26.8125	29

• ~ 9″ x 6″: Larger trade paperbacks, digest collections, etc.
• ~ 6.75″ x 4.125″: Pocket paperbacks.
• ~ 8″ x 5.25″: Trade paperbacks / small hardcovers.
• ~ 10.1875″ x 6.625″: Comics trade paperbacks.
• ~ 7.75″ x 5″: Smaller trade paperbacks.

Comics trades it was. I was already planning to use some of the surprisingly-decent lumber from ripping out old shelves in the basement for a side-table, and I still had a couple 4-packs of PLY90 connectors left over from a first round of move-in furniture, so that made it simple.

Design-wise, I wanted there to be enough room to tip out a book without banging the edge on the underside of the upper shelf. So…

√(10.1875²”” + 6.625²””) ≅ 12.15″ → 12.5″

For the depth, pulling a le Corbusier or da Vinci, there’s:

√(10.1875²”” + 6.625²””)/Φ ≅ 7.51″

12.5″/Φ ≅ 7.73″ → 7.75″

For ¾” boards, each PLY90 connector will add ~¼” offset in both dimensions, which means the uprights will be an even foot. 36″ is a standard-ish length for fingers-crossed no-sagging shelving of non-cement-dense books, so there we go:

• Two (2) 36″ x 7 ¾” boards
• Two (2) 12″ x 7 ¾” boards

Cross-cut to length, rip to width, sand forever, or at least until I noticed from the cut edges that the surface darkening went well deeper than I was willing or practically able to sand off, so then I just crossed my fingers and hoped that the pre-stain and stain would look not-gawdawful.

SHELVE ALL THE COMICS A MAJORITY OF THE COMICS THAT FIT THE PRECISE, 1/16″ RESOLUTION SIZE ENVELOPE DETAILED ABOVE

… and leave space for Sandman.

I think it worked. The PLY90 brackets are a bit not-super-shelvy at the very edges, and I’ll probably get some more suitable bookends for the top, but it gets more books onto shelves and uses up some extra parts and material lying around, so hooyah.