Look! Conceal Shelves from Umbra

At dinner in Baltimore the other night we saw the Umbra Conceal shelves in action in our friend's kitchen. It’s a nice way for her keep her cookbooks handy as well as providing some additional display area…

All and all she is fairly happy with them but stated that you could really only stack about 4 normal sized hardback books on them. They simply can’t take all that much weight.

In you are looking for some more heavy-duty in this style, the do-it-you-self version we posted about before looks sturdier.

Comments (7)

cute idea for cookbooks. i like. :)

posted by animalhouze on September 30th 2008 at 12:32pm
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I have about a half dozen of these shelves - they're great to look at but don't hold a lot of weight. I find if you alternate hardcovers with paperbacks it works better.

posted by ghbw on September 30th 2008 at 12:43pm
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I would like to use these as cat steps for a ten-pound cat (with a book or two as base). Are they in any way sturdy enough for that?

posted by Cassis on September 30th 2008 at 12:52pm
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They certainly look cool, but I feel like they are just asking for someone to accidentally lean one on, or rest something heavy on it, and rip it out of the wall. Or maybe that's just me (I'm clumsy!)

posted by KetchupFiend on September 30th 2008 at 1:08pm
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They can hold up to 15 lbs according to the manufacturer.

posted by ghbw on September 30th 2008 at 1:13pm
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Cassis: If you do the DIY version just make sure you use the appropriate wall anchors and they could hold quite a bit of weight. I find that the folks at my local hardware store are always very helpful when I have questions about that sort of thing! I personally prefer my local mom-n-pop shop to the big stores because they seem to have more time for me.

posted by Monica on October 1st 2008 at 5:29am
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there are different sizes, i have the large, and it holds up to 20 lbs i believe. i added those plastic anchor things, so i don't know if that made a huge difference, but mine seems very sturdy.

really like that she used cookbooks.

posted by jln3681 on October 8th 2008 at 5:18pm
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