Building a Game Shelf, Part I

Im honestly running out of room for my games. To solve the problem, I could go out and buy a shelf. On the other hand, I could custom build one and tailor it to my needs. Being an engineer, and someone who wants to have fun, I chose option #2. This mini-series will take you through the process of planning your shelf and actually building it.

Usually the shelf starts out as an idea on paper. With various dimensions, it will be necessary to plan your shelf. It isn't hard- and the shelf doesn't need to be drawn neatly. A rough sketch will do. The primary measurement that will effect our shelf's size is the length of the board. Next the thickness, and finally the width.

When you purchase boards from a hardware store, they are already a set length. You need to know the length of your boards so that you (or the nice store employee) can cut them. Often you may find that you cannot fit all of your pieces onto one piece of wood, meaning that we will need multiple boards. Keep this in mind.

I went to Homedepot.com and selected a cheap and easy to work with wood. I selected a Norway spruce that measured LxWxT   72"x5.5"x1". Those are the dimensions of one board, and one board costs $5.33 USD. Now we need to look at our shelf dimensions.

To get the top and bottom of my shelf, I need 40"x5.5"x1", twice. The length adds up to 80", which is longer than our board. This means we will have to go to another board. We will then have two boards left over from the cut that are both 32" in length.

I planned for the sides of my shelf to be 21". To get the length of the board for one side, I need to subtract the thickness of a board (twice) because the board will be wedged between the top and bottom. 21"-2" = 19" board. I need two of these, and we can easily cut them from the boards we had left over earlier. We now have two boards with 13" in length left.

For the center board I will need another piece just like the side. We will have to start on a new board. That board has 53" left over.

For the shelves I will need 4 pieces of wood. To get the lengths of the shelves, we know it is 20" from the center to the far side. That is half one board's thickness (due to being centered) plus the thickness of another board. 20"-1.5"= 18.5" boards. We can get two shelf pieces out of the third board, and be left with 16 inches of wood.

We will have to start another board. 72"-18.5"-18.5"= 35". We will have some leftover wood, but I am sure you can find a use for it. Later if you choose to build more units (I have a manga shelf coming up) see if you can use the scrap in some way. Let's tabulate the costs of the project.

Lumber cost: $21.32
tax: $1.28
paint: $8.46 (with tax)
total
_________
$31.07

not including the price of dowel rod, which is negligible since I have some lying around. You COULD go out and buy a shelf for roughly the same price, but they are cheap and not tailored to your needs. Have some fun!