The Plank’s Tale

This is the true story of several planks. It takes place within one day.

Background

Yesterday I noticed a stack of shelving by the dumpster – good stuff, about six feet long, one foot wide, good condition. There was a mixture of raw pine, white-painted melamine or similar, stained or dark-brown painted wood. Basically dis-assembled kits of shelving, no doubt tossed by an old or new tenant.

It took me three trips to lug it all upstairs. Plus a trip to the local hardware store to purchase two lengths of dowel at $0.99c each. I already own plastic milk bags with wood screws, small square brackets, and mirror clips (!), but if not, each of a packet of these things is about $3.00 or so.

Basics

First off, it’s “A Second Use For Everything”, it’s not “Never throw anything away”, so there will be material left over, commonly short lengths of shelving. But more about that later.

I armed myself with a wood saw, a pair of pliers and a screwdriver.

To Work

I sorted the planks into basic types – white, brown, untreated etc, and by length. I’m going to use the longest pieces that will fit vertically, and saw the remaining pieces into shelves. At this stage it’s important that I don’t get too wrapped up in best-fit methodology and mathematics; I want some shelves, quickly!

I made three sets, whose end-products will be shown below.

Stand-alone shelves consist of a back, two sides, and shelves.

The back is the widest piece I have. That makes for the widest shelves possible. Since my widest good piece was twelve inches, my stand-alone shelves can be only twelve inches wide. If I want three-foot wide shelves, commonly for bookshelves, I’d need a sheet of wood three feet wide by about six feet tall.

I lay sides down and mark off holes at two-inch intervals from the base to the top. These will be holes to take shelf pegs, on which will rest my shelves. I make three holes per side, so that I can accommodate narrow shelves too.

I drill these holes half-way through each side. I try not to drill right through so that no holes show on the outside. It works out to about a hundred holes per side, but it’s worth it down the road.

I lay the back on its, well, back, and fix the sides with two-inch square angle brackets. These will hold the three pieces together as I gingerly lift the item upright.

Here is a view of the shelves. You can see the dowel-pegs in place, and the small metal clips that hold the back mirror. A length of dowel lies across the unit. (I realized later that it looks like a photo of an extremely cheap DIY coffin, and I’m nowhere near dead. That’s my shadow in the photo. So tempting to add a joke about me being a shadow of my former self ….)

I use three long screws per side to properly anchor the sides to the back. The sides are now held to the back by three sensible screws plus an angle bracket at top and bottom. The unit looks complete, except for the shelves.

I saw the remaining planks into shelf-wide pieces. Now that the sides and back are anchored, the shelf width is determined.

I use pliers to clip the dowel into 1½ inch lengths for shelf pegs. I place three pegs each side for a shelf, tapping them in with the nose of the pliers; no need for a hammer here.

I slide the shelves in place. Bingo!

Finishing touches: I screwed the top and bottom shelves from the outside of the side, to make a more rigid structure.

Finishing touches: I removed the shelves and used mirror clips to insert a long mirror at the back. The mirror is slightly chipped at one end; I put that end at the bottom so it will be unnoticeable. This all adds a bit of class, and glass, to the finished product.

Cash cost to me: Seven dollars.

It works!

It really does. I spend less than two hours per set of shelves.

I have a one-foot wide brown wood vertical shelf for the living-area (shown above).

I have a one-foot wide white-wood vertical shelf for the office nook. Here they are to the right of the filing-cabinets, filling an otherwise useless twelve-inch gap.

I have a three-foot wide closet shelf for shoes, caps, scarves and so on. This shelf did not need a back-sheet, because it fits into one end of a coat closet. I wedge the vertical pieces in with the shelves. I still drill peg-holes at two-inch intervals so that I can adjust shelf heights in under 60 seconds.

I have a small stock of material available for these or future shelving products. Worst-case scenario for me is that if they are unused after a month, I’ll toss them in the dumpster, but even so, the bulk of the originally-dumped material will be in use.

Thanks for reading this. I hope that you are inspired.

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