First project help - alcove storage

[thecambridgetryer]

I'm just about to start on my first project of several and I'm trying to get some advise before I start and ruin a load of materials.

We are renovating a house and there are several alcoves which need built in storage. Most are going to be cupboards to hide all of our stuff but one is going to be bookshelves. I thought I would start with that one as it should be the simplest.

If I run over my plan I would appreciate any feedback.

They will be chunky split bookshelves, books on the left and firewood for the woodburner on the right.To make my life easy I'm going to use 22mm MDF with 20.5x44 mm PAR face frame, shelves for books are 22mm thick with 44mm width face frame. Shelves for wood are double thickness so they are strong and there is no overhang to catch on the face frame. I have already built boxes in the alcove base before we replaced the floor and skirting so I don't have to worry about that.

I was just going to buy a router and straight edge, rout out 22 or 44 housing joints for the shelves, glue screw the two bookshelves together, screw in to 22mm battens on the wall and then nail and glue the face frame on. Maybe scribing or caulk depending on how positive I'm feeling by that point.

I'm not entirely sure how to finish the top, I've seen some with fancy coving. I've planned it flush with the alcove as that seems right but the cupboards will probably come out further.

I'm modelling it in sketckup

 

[Tierney]

Hi,

Welcome to the forum. Your plan seems sensible, one suggestion would be to make sure that you allow for the walls being out of square - when building the carcass you can just screw the top and bottom horizontal pieces and the two sides and see if it fits, you can shorten the horizontal pieces until it fits. Once you've got it to fit you can then cut all the shelves to the same width. On the alcove cupboards that I have just finished I ended up with between 6mm and 10mm on either side and they were only 600mm high. You have mentioned that you will use 22mm battens; but, I think that would only work if your walls were perfectly square - I think you will need to use a variety of shims - you can buy packets with a variety between 1mm and 10mm; which, you can mix (i.e. stack) to get whatever thickness you need. You may wish to consider making your face frame components wider, to allow for out of squareness, but more importantly so you don't need to spend for ever trying to get it flush with your MDF and also to allow for shrinkage (it may be 44mm when you buy it; but three weeks in central heated house may end up a bit narrower). If you cannot make the face frame components wider, then you could choose 18mm MDF.

Trying to make if flush with the face of your chimney breast assumes that is plumb; which it may not be, so worth checking that when you are testing the fit of your carcass. If you are coving around the top, i guess you will need it flush to the chimney breast at the top; however if it is flush in one part but set back or protruding in othe departs it may look a little odd. generally it is easier to finish something that is set back rather than protruding. If you are coving you probably want to have it set back or protruding a reasonable amount so the step in your coving is not insignificant.

To me, having the lipping on the shelves flush with the face frame will have a contemporary look to it; whereas I think having the set back will be a bit more traditional.

I have assumed that you are buying PAR from a DIY store or standard timber merchants, in which case it will be some type of softwood (pine/spruce/fir) and hence have knots. If you have the time, it's worth trying to find the nearest timber merchant that sells poplar / tulipwood and is willing to make it PAR for you. It has virtually no knots, is easy to work, finishes well and is a similar weight. Most of the people on this forum seem to recommend it for painted furniture.

Naturally the points on how things 'look' are my opinions; but, you can always have a look on the Internet for ideas - my wife does that and then tells me to build it!

Cheers,

DT

 

[rafezetter]

heh - I just wrote a big answer about scribing face frames to the walls then re-read your post... so it looks like you've got it all covered, only thing I'd say is if you do scribe, do each face frame separately to match the walls and ceiling shape, then cut to desired length after, as in the scribe you'll be removing material and a premade face frame might not fit properly. yes I've done this

Also as you'll have some space under the plinth and sides you could add a simple LED lighting loom for some extra zazz.

 

[thecambridgetryer]

Thanks for the replies. Glad to know I'm not miles off.

I'll check the chimney for plumb, I can see why this would be a problem. Bringing it further out and wrapping the face frame would solve that but cause more problems. Yes, the battens are just 22 for planning, in reality they will vary based on the wall, a pack of shims sounds like a plan.

The face frame is actually 45mm I think which gives me 1mm, yes, pine. They do a premium version which has less knots which hopefully will be ok. Hardwood would be nicer, just not sure of the availability, price and difference once painted. Think it's around £2/m. If I go for 22+18, I'd need to trim 5mm off. Worst comes to worst, I can lightly sand the join? I'm thinking or rounding over the shelf lipping might look nice.

I'm not sure if i need a plywood back for the longer shelves or not. Just some cookery books so i'd hope 22mm with lipping would be ok?

I'm not planning on going to the ceiling but I've seen some nice designs where they wrap crown moulding round the top to make it look professional. i'll need to build it out a little to allow an end piece where it meets the chimney.

 

[marcus]

All good advice. Here's a trick if you're going to scribe the face frame. Run a rebate along the outside edge before hand, so that when trimming to your scribe line you only have to remove maybe 6mm thickness. That way you can easily use a spokeshave to fine tune the fit with hardly any force at all. Much easier on site than trying to shape a piece 20mm thick held on a workmate or saw horse.

 

[Tierney]

Try http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator.htm to work out if your shelf thickness is ok. Assuming cook books weigh approx. 10kg per 300mm and your span is approx. 900mm then 18mm MDF lipped with spruce will be fine.

You have two options for your edges a round over with a router, a 1/4" radius should be fine or a 45 degree bevel, I suggest you aim for 3mm. Both will be visible, even after painting; but, shouldn't be too obtrusive. Anything larger is sort of becoming a more significant design feature. Again all down to personal taste.

If you are not going to the ceiling and doing the crown coving/moulding, I don't think you need to build out the face frame, as you will be able to mitre and put a return on the moulding.

DT

 

[thecambridgetryer]

Loads of great advice, thanks.

So the only niggle I'm left with is face frame material. How dramatic should I expect the shrinkage to be? at the moment the face frame will be just a hair over perfect where I have two 22mm boards together and the frame will be 44-45mm. I think I saw some hardwood PAR which was the same size would this shrink less? Not sure how much more it was. If I do any other size combinations, it's going to involve lots of trimming which introduces complexity and risk of me screwing it up.

In general I'm surprised at the general lack of hardwood choices in the UK. All the US woodworking tutorials seem to suggest they just walk in to a store and have 20 different hardwood to choose from with matching plywood.

 

[AndyT]

Another thing not in your drawing that you may need to think about - the existing skirting. Depending on what you have in the rest of the room you may want to cut it flush to your new plinth or scribe the plinth to the skirting. Is there any skirting either side of the fireplace?

 

[thecambridgetryer]

The very bottom plinth (below the face frame) is already there with skirting running along the front.
When we replaced the flooring I knew we wanted storage so I quickly built boxes higher than the skirting and floored up to it.

Couldn't be bothered to put the skirting in to sketchup

 

[Tierney]

Each wood will have a different shrinkage rate and wood will continue to move over time with the seasons etc. It may be 1mm or 2mm, from when you buy it to when it has approximately stabilised. You could get all scientific and buy a moisture meter, work out the humidity of your house etc. or allow enough tolerance in your design. I try and keep it in the house for about three weeks before using it. Problem is your design has zero allowance for shrinkage. Your MDF may be +/- 0.5mm and your wood may be +/- 1mm (maybe more) different to the advertised / quoted dimensions.

If you are painting everything and you have a tablesaw you could make the face frame out of MDF also. It requires a bit extra effort to get the cut edges smooth when painting; but, you have no shrinkage / knots issues.

It is very different in the US as they have an abundance of native grown timbers.

DT

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

+1 to buying the wood components and keeping them in a centrally heated environment for 3 weeks prior to use for acclimatisation. Also one tiny point for quality of fit. When you do any scribes, if you also slightly undercut you will end up with only the very edge actually touching the (out of true) walls rather than the whole thickness of the stock. This removes any risk of hitting a bump (say) 1mm back from the edge which stops that air tight finish you want.

 

[custard]

Welcome to the forum.

I had a similar challenge. Forgive the rubbish phone photo but this was my solution.

I used thick "floating" shelves above the woodstore area.

Books got a dedicated shelving unit running across a full wall.

If the unit goes to the ceiling I'd definitely have a cornice, it looks unfinished otherwise. It's not a complex job but you do have to be very thorough with the preparation and very precise with your cutting.

 

[thecambridgetryer]

Nice work custard. I like the colour.

What design, materials, paint did you use? I'm considering cupboards or drawers all the way up to let me hide more stuff.

Have you had any problems with the firewood banging up the shelves?

 

[custard]

It's all standard stuff, MDF, baltic birch ply, tulip wood face frames and lippings. The paint is Farrow & Ball, it's now on its second winter and the woodburner gets used nearly every day. No problems so far with paint chipping, but when it does (as it surely will at some point) it's not a problem to repaint the log store section.

Couple of things to bear in mind, MDF sags (google "sagulator" to get a sense of how much it sags) so think about good quality birch ply for book shelves, or use thicker MDF with really heavy lippings front and back or a torsion box design. Tulip wood lippings will also give you a great surface for paint, I would stay well away from pine because of the potential problems with resin bleed through and knots, tulip wood (often called poplar) is by far the better choice.

I've looked again at your design. You're going the right way in terms of constructional details, but if you don't mind me saying I'd think again about the asymmetric layout and the gap at the top. If you don't feel ready for a scribed cornice you could place the top shelf a bit lower to make it look more deliberate rather than "gappy". Just my opinion.

 

[thecambridgetryer]

Where did you get your tulip wood?
Looks like the Ridgeons has limited par white oak in the same size so I might see how much more it is. I've been thinking I could use 18mm for the sides and pack where they meet to be just less than the face frame. For the double thick shelves, there is only 2 so I might just plane/sand a little off the meeting faces to give me an extra mm of error for shrinkage.
I was planning a cornice like this if I can find any hopefully the detail will tie the different storage together post345489.html?hilit=scribing%20skirting#p345489

The a symmetric design is unusual but I really like the tall narrow shelves for firewood specifically so I've gone for 2/3, 1/3. Worth a go. My other storage will be symmetrical.

 

[custard]

Most proper timber yards have loads of tulip wood (they'll often list it as poplar) because it's such a standard item for kitchen fitters, shop fitters, built in wardrobe fitters, in fact anyone who paints furniture for a living will probably use tulip wood rather than pine. I usually use Tyler Hardwoods because I prefer to self select sawn boards and process them myself, but SL Hardwoods stock decent quality tulip wood in a wide range of PAR sizes and will deliver fairly small quantities, not the cheapest but their kilning is pretty reliable.

http://www.slhardwoods.co.uk/ParBoardsTimber.aspx?ID=46

Good luck!

 

[rafezetter]

All good advice. Here's a trick if you're going to scribe the face frame. Run a rebate along the outside edge before hand, so that when trimming to your scribe line you only have to remove maybe 6mm thickness. That way you can easily use a spokeshave to fine tune the fit with hardly any force at all. Much easier on site than trying to shape a piece 20mm thick held on a workmate or saw horse.

Ahh yes I should have remembered that, only thing I'd add is to back cut (bevel) the scribe cut away from the wall so that just the front few mm tip of the faceframe is touching the wall, that way any other minor bumps n such that may be in the wall during the thickness of the wood will be avoided.

edit: Bah, bob beat me to it - must read whole thread before replying...

couldn't be bothered to delete it, and it's a good tip worth saying twice