Brag Post: DIY Small Footprint Kids Bookcase

Today's DIY focus is more of a brag than a tutorial.

Our kids love books. LOVE them. Because of this, every birthday and holiday they get books as presents. This is all wonderful and awesome. Except for one small thing: 

They pile up everywhere! There are bookshelves in their room, and piles of their books were overwhelming the bookcases in our living room. Sadly, every time they would go to grab a book there is would be an avalanche of board books crashing down.

We needed a solution. But with our limited floor space, it needed to be something with a really slim footprint. After doing a lot of research I found this plan by Ana White. If you haven't heard of her, she is a carpentry genius who graciously shares her plans with us mere mortals.

Using her bookshelf blueprints we were able to create an awesome bookcase that allows the kids to see all the books they have, take them down without danger, and still takes up less space than a traditional bookcase. Win!

We did make a few changes to her plans. Instead of making the bookshelf 3" deep, we made it 4". A lot of books to store people. Every inch counts.

We also chose to use leftover baseboard for the fronts of the shelves, versus plywood. A: I like the look of it over plywood. B: I am a big fan of using leftover materials. Call me cheap resourceful.

To attach the baseboard to the front, we used wood glue along the bottom and clamped it down.  Then we used our finish nail gun and added a few nails along the bottom and on the sides.

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Lovin' my chevron paint job? There are lots of complex mathematical formulas out there for creating a perfectly designed chevron. As the design is going to be covered 99% of the time by books, I decided to just wing it. 

First I painted the back section of the bookcase with white paint. Once that was dry, I cut out a small triangle and used is as a rough guide for marking my chevrons with masking tape. Then I painted the entire thing in a lovely shade of blue. Once dried, I slowly removed my tape. Voila!

The chevrons are  little lopsided, but this is a children's bookcase. I'll just pretend it adds character.

And there you have it!  All in all it cost us around $20, and holds 60 books! Trust us, we counted.

The kids love it!

Have you built something that is both functional and awesome for your family? Share it with us on our Facebook page!