One of the things we need more of in our house is shelves. We could use more shelves virtually everywhere in the house. Currently there are two kinds of shelving we are thinking about: garage shelves and book shelves.
Garage shelves would be used for storing all the boxes of stuff that most people would put in the basement/attic. I haven’t really scoped out our attic for how well it would work for storage purposes, but I do know it doesn’t have any kind of flooring. And I don’t have a ladder either. Thus we’re thinking of building shelves that would be about 2 feet below ceiling level. We have about 15-20 feet of space to cover with these shelves. There are two options we see for this: 2×4’s and plywood or wire-frame shelves. The wood option would be heavy and I’m not sure how to make it look good. The wire-frame shelves are the same shelves we have in the rest of the house. I have talked to other people around the block that have used the wire-frame shelves and they report no problems with putting lots of weight on them.
On the other front, we need bookshelves. First, would ya’ll build in bookshelves or would you buy stand-alone bookshelves? Building the bookshelves has the issue of having equipment to cut/trim/ect wood bought. We would probably transport thing between our house and Victoria, as Christina’s folks have every woodcutting tool we’d ever need and the space to do the work in. (they have a workshop setup for the work they are doing to restore a house). Or we could try to find good pre-made shelves to buy and put in place.
So, I’m wondering, for those of you that have already done this, what does your experience tell you?
I have never used the metal shelving you are talking about for the garage, but the idea is appealing. If your shelves are high all the way around the garage, they would not take any real space away in the garage. One thing that strikes me as a plus about the metal shelving is that you could see thru it. It would be very easy to loose things on high deep shelves, but if you can see thru the shelf, that will not be an issue.
In the house, i think that i would build free standing shelfs rather then building in. The only time i would build in shelves is if there was an area where nothing else would work there. When you sell your house the new buyers might like your built-ins, but if they don’t… well, it could limit your number of buyers. Besides, freestanding shelves can be moved when you move. You will always need shelves. (If you are concerned about shelf units falling, you can anchor them to a wall.)
If the tools to make them nice are available to you, it is worth the extra effort and expense (at least to a point). You might find you enjoy woodworking.
Just wanted to add that plywood, may seem to be your cheapest option, but it could, in the long run, be the most unsatisfactory. Plywood tends to sag, especially if you put weight on it. If you use plywood, you would need to get 3/4 inch (and then it would no longer be cost effective) and/or you would need to to support the front edge all the way around, most likely with a 4×4. Though plywood may seem the least expensive, if you do it so it will last, it is not going to be.
I should note that when we say ‘built in’ shelving, I mean shelving that uses some sort of bracket to attach to the wall. Plus when we move long down the line, they would be easier to move than stand alone units.
Non-built in would be stand-alone units. Things you could empty, move to another room, and re-fill.
Right now I’m leaning towards the built-in version as it would probably be cheaper to do and it would be something we built. For indoor shelving, plywood need not apply.
We’re thinking the metal wire shelving would be best for the garage.
I agree (if I understand what I’m agreeing with).
I think that metal shelving in the garage is good. Just go to Home Depot (or similar) and ask anyone about garage shelving options. Then wander around and collect ideas. I think the qualities to look for are strength and flexibility. You’ll want to be able to make hangers for buckets and small shelves for garden seeds and so forth. But metal (a finished non-rusting metal) is good.
For indoor shelving, I’d say it depends on time & budget & what you’re looking for. Are these shelving systems to last forever? Are they going to fit a space you’ll be in forever? How attached do you feel you’ll become to your shelves? For fast and reasonably cheap, I’d say get pre-built shelves, around the $100 each pricepoint. Something like Office Depot, or cheaper still, Target. It’ll be much faster, and considering all the elements, probably cheaper, then building yourself. Probably more versatile. But nowhere near as special, and it won’t be really that durable.
If you can go to the $200 price point, then you can buy nice stuff, or since you have all the machines available, you should be able to make a nice set of shelves that you’ll have control over – can make them as reinforced as you need, can make the shelf sizes what you need. That step generally backfires on me, I must admit. Oh well. I don’t have access to nice tools; that will be my excuse.
And if you’re going for quality, sheer quality … well, how much are you willing to spend? How many shelves do you really need at one point? And how skilled are you at the use of those tools?
one point to think about if you are thinking of attaching shelves to a wall is damage to the wall. The shelves we had in your bedroom, Chris, left only the screw holes, but the shelves i had in the sewing room (now dining room) left so much damage that we had to repair the texture where the metal dug long scars into the wall. It is not something you notice just glancing at the wall, but if you really look, you can tell.
What we used in the sewing/dining room was the kind of support with strips of metal screwed to the wall and movable brackets that insert into the metal strips. That type of system i have seen lately look like they would be less likely to damage walls, though. The strips that i mounted on the wall were made with 90 degree angles; the new designs i have seen have 45 degree (or less than 90 degree) bends which i think would be better.
I would caution you to screw them on by hand, though. I think the main reason mine damaged the wall was that we used an electric drill to screw and got them too tight.
One more point to consider – the type that has screwed-to-the-wall support cannot handle as much weight unless you use lots of support. For all books, i would put a support on every stud, and even then i would be careful about placement. If the shelves are accidentally knocked from a side, the brackets that support the shelf can twist. We have had that happen with the ceiling to floor system we had in the living room. The shelves did not actually fall, but if they had had a heavy prone-to-slide load, i am not sure what would have happened. As it was we just had to replace the twisted pieces.
We’ve pretty much decided on getting Ikea bookshelves. We have a few already, which have worked well for us.
This round we will get the tall ( about six foot ) style. We will wall mount the top as we want to leave most of the bottom (child accessible) shelves open for child-safe whatnot, which is typically lighter than the books that’ll end up on the top.
I believe Ikea has wall mounting options already; if not, simple enough to screw brackets into the top. Heck, brackets on the top might be a good idea as they would make solid bookends.