These bookshelves were a sub-project of a basement improvement project that I started early this year, and they're the first to be completely finished. I'll post the cabinet build project once they are completed (I'm oh-so-close).The bookshelves are 3/4” maple plywood with iron-on birch edge banding. (I bought birch banding prior to deciding on the less-expensive maple plywood. The color is close enough.) The finish is shellac followed by GF Exterior 450 Flat poly. They're mounted with a french cleat, which floats them away from the wall 3/4”. The back panel of each box is dadoed to accepts aluminum channel for LED strip lights. The four boxes hang on four matching cleats with some low voltage wiring running between them, with the 12V wire from the transformer exiting the wall behind one of the boxes. I added a spacer between each box to visually lighten the look and make the assembly look less monolithic. The spacers are made from the same 3/4” ply with a teak veneer applied, also finished with shellac and poly. They simply hang on a plywood cleat that's attached to the side of a box with double-stick tape. I made a quick jig to place the cleat in the same location on each box. I built the boxes with removable backs because I'm still on the fence about painting the back to match the wall (painting over contact paper) to give the illusion that the wall's visible through the shelves. Here's an earlier experiment with one box back painted that way. Comments on which looks better?
These bookshelves were a sub-project of a basement improvement project that I started early this year, and they're the first to be completely finished. I'll post the cabinet build project once they are completed (I'm oh-so-close).The bookshelves are 3/4” maple plywood with iron-on birch edge banding. (I bought birch banding prior to deciding on the less-expensive maple plywood. The color is close enough.) The finish is shellac followed by GF Exterior 450 Flat poly. They're mounted with a french cleat, which floats them away from the wall 3/4”. The back panel of each box is dadoed to accepts aluminum channel for LED strip lights.
The four boxes hang on four matching cleats with some low voltage wiring running between them, with the 12V wire from the transformer exiting the wall behind one of the boxes.
I added a spacer between each box to visually lighten the look and make the assembly look less monolithic. The spacers are made from the same 3/4” ply with a teak veneer applied, also finished with shellac and poly. They simply hang on a plywood cleat that's attached to the side of a box with double-stick tape. I made a quick jig to place the cleat in the same location on each box.
I built the boxes with removable backs because I'm still on the fence about painting the back to match the wall (painting over contact paper) to give the illusion that the wall's visible through the shelves. Here's an earlier experiment with one box back painted that way. Comments on which looks better?