Welcome to the Library. (Ikea-hacked built-in bookshelves!)

After months of slowly progressing, we have a library that’s basically finished! 

I’ve read lots of posts on other sites about Ikea-hacked billy bookcases and when we went down the road of wanting to build a library, we decided to give it a go.

To start, we had to remove all of the old moulding from the walls that we’d be building the shelves into.

Then, after three trips to Ikea, we procured all of the shelves we’d need. The use of power tools always makes Ikea assembly so much easier and faster. 

We fit everything into the existing space, cutting out holes for outlets and then the shelves pretty much sat in this states for two months. Hey, we’ve traveled a lot this summer!

But now I knew it was time to bring out the big guns…er, well, the finish nail gun. And of course we didn’t have one so we took the dive in to buy one. At the same time, my 10-year old drill pretty much died so it was time for an upgrade of that too.

Then onto framing. I remember going to Home Depot and thinking “Oh yeah, we can get this framing done in a couple of hours once we start.” Er, no. It took an entire day to frame. With 90-year old walls and floors that don’t like to follow straight lines and a mix of building materials, it took some time.

Once the framing was finally done, it was time to put up plywood to trim out the shelves and cover the framing. As it goes, the store we went to ran out of 1/2 inch plywood so we had to layer with two 1/4 inch pieces. Oh well.

After the plywood, I put up all of the moulding around the edges, masking the edges of the shelves and tying them into the walls.

With any project like this, caulk is your best friend. Every gap that emerged or irregularity, caulk makes it all ok.

Once the caulk dried, the paint went up and there you have the built-ins. We have a couple of small moulding pieces to finish in coming days, but I couldn’t wait any longer to share the progress.

The library component is a work in progress. So I guess Gabe will have to deal with me buying even more books.  
  
Next up: that black hole of an office.