All those pieces will find homes on this design. The shelves will be 18 inches wide and a standard 14 inches high. The top and bottom will be fixed but the middle shelf will float. We'll probably give ourselves a few options so we can move that shelf up or down by an inch. You never know when you'll get some oversized books. Across the bottom on the front will be a flat piece that will mirror the decorative pieces (rails) at the top and bottom on the sides.
With this all set we surveyed the field. In case you've ever wondered, this is roughly what a bookshelf looks like au natural. The widest board (1x12) will be the bottom, top, and middle shelf. The 1x10 resting on top will make the sides. The 1x4 next to it will be the three rails. And we'll use the four 2x2s for the legs. All of this is poplar because we find that pretty easy to work with, it holds paint/stain well, and tends to warp less than pine.
One thing we wanted to make sure was that the legs are exactly the same length. We hit on the idea of binding them together and cutting them as a unit. We used a couple clamps to hold them in both directions. The resulting cuts did exactly what we wanted, which was nice.
After we cut all of the boards to the right lengths, each of the pieces was too wide for our design, but the table saw (set to the right widths) made quick work of that problem. Here's one of the 1x4 pieces being trimmed to 3 inches high.
And voila! The legs are on the right. The rails come next. Then the two sides. And across the top of the picture are the shelves and top.
Everything's ready for a thorough sanding. Then we'll drill out the various holes for the screws and shelf pins before staining the individual pieces. We've discovered it's a lot easier to do it that way than staining after assembly. Stay tuned and by all means do try this at home.
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