Dear AT,
My fiance and I, both writers, have recently moved to Chicagoland, where we have (for the first time!) a designated office.
We picked up some industrial-looking white and steel workstations from McMaster-Carr part number 6459T81, (though the drawing does not do them justice), and are now looking for a bookcase solution for our growing library (my guess is, we have about a thousand books of boxes waiting to be unpacked).
We thought we'd run with the industrial look for the room, since we've already committed to the desks. We are looking for a cut-rate bookcase, preferably something DIY with easily available materials. Can a cinder block bookcase ever be attractive? Any other ideas?
Thanks,
Jennifer
Dear Jennifer,
We are personally not opposed to cinder block bookcases (or desks), especially if you paint the blocks a great color and have solid, clean pieces for the shelving. With such an industrial looking desk, a personalized, colorful (though still somewhat industrial looking) homemade set will definitely help you ease in to your new office space, without feeling like you're in someone else's sterile, standard office.
Other thoughts out there?? This is a great question, as we continue to struggle with our own home office...
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Comments (12)
I've always thought it would be neat to use glass blocks instead of concrete blocks for bookcase supports.
A bit more expensive, and you'd have to find a source for the blocks because Home Depot et al don't carry them, but a slightly more upscale-yet-still-DYI alternative...
I'd steer clear of cinderblocks if for no other reason than they are damn heavy and a pain in the butt to deal with.
If you're looking for a nice DIY I might suggest just taking a trip to Home Depot and perusing the aisles.
What about grabbing a few planks of pine/poplar for the shelves and then some steel threaded pipe and pipe anchors and assembling a custom wall unit a la: THIS!
They are fortunate to have some serios planks at their disposal but you can settle on thinner planks and then face them with some pine lath so they appear to be thicker than they are... ooh ooh you could face them with aluminum strips that Home Depot sells (in the hardware (nuts/bolts) aisle right by the chains (I've been stalking them for a project for a while)) and use square drive screws (as opposed to phillips/flat) to give them a machine look and then you could spraypaint (bought in Evanston at Ace Hardware or Tom Thumb) the pipe silver/grey.
A bit more work than cinderblock and pine planks but the effort wil go a long way to making the shelves a "piece" rather than a "solution"
Hell, now I wish I had more books to store!!
And while we're on the topic of offices/desks...
A hollow door from Home Depot costs about $25-30, Ikea (or sears/target...) makes plenty of computer carts and small shelves that look fantastic under said door and are desk height...
At the moment I have about 21sf of desk space that cost about $60.
How about the DIY bookshelves, the Hungarian Bookshelves featured here a few days ago?
My friend has a cinder block bookshelf and while it is not swanky, it is definately super functional and not visually offensive. I am trying to track down a picture of it, but please don't hold your breath.
R
do you have some pretty basic powertools around the house? you could easily get 4 extra planks and some L brackets and just build a conventional bookshelf.
i also saw a post about a DIY elfa-style system on one of the AT sites in the past could weeks.
another good option (especially if you can do it on a large scale) would be plastic milk crates. either scavenged and cleaned up a bit (spray paint is nice) or just bought through a source like the container store. the thing with this, though, is that you can't stack them very high before they start tilting. also, if you buy milk crates, you'll probably end up spending just as much as you would on a more traditional bookcase.
Friends of mine have a bookcase made of wooden planks stacked on terra-cotta chimney pipe segments (at least that's what I think they are; they're maybe 15 inches tall, with an oval 'footprint'). Definitely constructed in the style of cinderblock bookshelves, but looks a lot better.
Look around salvage yards, building supply places (not Lowes or Home Depot, more specialized stores), whatever--I'm sure you can find something to hold up your shelves that's way more attractive, but not too terribly more expensive.
The Emily & Scott house tour features a desk made from cinder block which actually looks kind of cool. See slides 15 & 16 here: http://apartmenttherapy.com/photo/090706emilyscott/_all_
Yes, we used painted cinder blocks & a hollow core door to make the desk in my office (the same way you'd make bookshelves)... it is by far the easiest & cheapest option. You could also try covering the cinder blocks in fabric or some other material (plastic, natural material, metal, etc) or a combination of blocks covered in different materials. For the shelving in my office we went with the metal wall mount strips & brackets system & also used hollow core doors (12" bifold) for shelves... another easy & cheap option. The metal strips are good for the industrial look & you could also play around with the look of the door-shelves by painting or covering them as well.
If you want to follow the industrial theme, think retail shelving or commercial kitchen shelving. Usually commercial salvage stores want the appliances or counters, and will sell the pantry shelves for nothing.
I have actually gone to job sites looking for salvage. I have gotten some great stuff.
Go to http://www.directofficefurniture.com/ located on Western Ave just north of Lawrence. We bought a walnut office cedenza there last year. I visited the location at 5041 N Western recently and noticed some tall metal bookshelves in a few colors.
I realize this is way late but in case anyone benefits from our experience . . .
We needed massive amounts of shelving between my partner and I for the number of books we had when we first got together. So using 10'x10"x1" wood planks and cinder blocks seemed to be the most economical option. We bought pine boards and stained them once with a mahogany wood stain followed by a red stain to get a rich reddish brown hue. Then we found square-shaped cinder blocks approx 8"x8"x4" with one of the sides displaying a chiseled inset when viewed from the side. We stacked these cinder blocks on top of cinder block bricks to get an additional 3" (most of our books are not taller than 11" or so) with the chiseled edge facing out.
So we stacked each plank on three sets of this cinder block combo, one for both sides of the plank and one to support the middle and repeated this about six times. We made shorter shelves beneath to hold shoes.
The look of this shelf to me is reminiscently Asian with reddish brown wood contrasting with what appears to be grey stone. The etching in the cinder blocks also makes it seem reminiscent of Asian sculpture. This was just one idea I had to make it not look so cold with pale wood stacked on grey cinder block. I think it was successful and I would definitely say it was possible!
We ended up bolting several shelves as protection from tipping -- and we have had no problems. Though I don't think this would be child-safe . . .