sickasapike
Established Member
Hi all, I'm hoping to get some opinions on some kitchen shelves I'm aiming to build if you'd be so kind (or unkind, for that matter !).
The wood I'm using is some really nice maple I got from a recycling place, so I only have so much and can't/don't want to buy in more. It's a bunch of kitchen cupboard doors (2 quid each, bargain !), one decent size plank that's just big enough for 2 shelves and a few short lengths of thinner planks that have been glued together with a 25mm offset.
The shelves are intended for fairly heavy stuff like glass jars of pulses, stack of pyrex bowls etc so need to be quite beefy, not hang-offable bt strong. The walls are crumbly old brick/plaster and stud/drywall (on long and short edges respectively) and of course I want as few fixings on display as possible, ideally none at all, this will all just be sanded and oiled.
The boards on the wall hide the mass of brutal holes from the old shelves and roller blind I removed, so wanted a design like this that allows me to reuse some, conceal the rest and avoid any filling/painting etc (yeah, lazy but I've had quite enough of slimes and sludges for the moment having been regrouting and resealing the bathroom !)
The right hand side is above a window and the boards on the left extend below to allow the whole thing to use an existing horizontal support, and allow me to add a hanging/floating drainer rack at some point (it'll be over the draining board).
I've attached a jpg of the Sketchup file of the plan so far, I tried to upload the .skp file but that extension is prohibited, odd (why ?), so I renamed it to .skp.txt and tried, and that extension is prohibited, so renamed to .skp.jpg but it failed to work out the dimesions of the 'image'... so I just uploaded a jpg export instead.
There's no top shelf as I've not got enough timber, so leaving the top shelf out until I have, it'll go flush to the wall so gets a bit more support below but no block on top - I'll not put super heavy stuff on the top shelf anyway.
The strange-ish blocks are cuts from the two planks glued together stock, so the cross-section isn't my idea, just what I have to work with, I (hope I) have just enough of it to make the 20 blocks I'll need. The kitchen will be mildly shakery so the square corners on the supports suit pretty well.
The idea is to secure the blocks to the vertical boards with screws from behind, then screw the boards to the wall in the gaps where the shelves slot into (so invisible), then slot in the shelves (the slots are 50mm deep) and vertically screw 2 or 3 long thick screws down through the upper blocks and shelves into the lower blocks (will be pre-drilled, the holes will be centred about 37.5mm in from the rear edge of the shelves so not right at the edge, should help I think.
What I'm wondering is, will this be strong enough ? Not the maple bowing in the middle, it's the block clamping thing I'm concerned about, I'd like the blocks to be deeper but there's not enough wood to make larger ones. I'm thinking the corner will give the shelves more mutual support, they'll be glued and either splined or dowelled (20mm thick), I was thinking I could also put a pocket hole in at the rear of the joins for good measure.
I wasn't planning to glue the shelves in, just for easier re-use of the timber one day; it wouldnt be a great problem to do so but would rather avoid any glue (apart from that joining the shelves into an L shape).
With this design taking up pretty much all the maple I have, I can only put battens (?) along the rear of the shelves to support the full width of the planks by taking it off the shelf depth unless I use another wood, and don't want to do either.
In general the timber is in great condition, all square and lovely, so I'm trying to do as few cuts as possible to save time (I need to get the kitchen operational pretty quickly for obvious seasonal reasons, the fridge and freezer are currently in the lounge !!) and just cutting down on sanding and compounded inacuracies etc.
Any opinons appreciated, especially negative ones, even more especially negative ones with solutions that don't need any more maple
The shelves are away from the wall partly to stop it being a dust collector and to give enough depth for large bowls etc.
...a little later...
I could use the upper support blocks cut down, inverted and attached to the lower ones as in the other image, gives twice as much depth of support but no upper blocks to hold the shelves down, better or worse do you think ? - it adds another join in an easy to spot place and I don't like the look so much, so not really a good solution for me.
The wood I'm using is some really nice maple I got from a recycling place, so I only have so much and can't/don't want to buy in more. It's a bunch of kitchen cupboard doors (2 quid each, bargain !), one decent size plank that's just big enough for 2 shelves and a few short lengths of thinner planks that have been glued together with a 25mm offset.
The shelves are intended for fairly heavy stuff like glass jars of pulses, stack of pyrex bowls etc so need to be quite beefy, not hang-offable bt strong. The walls are crumbly old brick/plaster and stud/drywall (on long and short edges respectively) and of course I want as few fixings on display as possible, ideally none at all, this will all just be sanded and oiled.
The boards on the wall hide the mass of brutal holes from the old shelves and roller blind I removed, so wanted a design like this that allows me to reuse some, conceal the rest and avoid any filling/painting etc (yeah, lazy but I've had quite enough of slimes and sludges for the moment having been regrouting and resealing the bathroom !)
The right hand side is above a window and the boards on the left extend below to allow the whole thing to use an existing horizontal support, and allow me to add a hanging/floating drainer rack at some point (it'll be over the draining board).
I've attached a jpg of the Sketchup file of the plan so far, I tried to upload the .skp file but that extension is prohibited, odd (why ?), so I renamed it to .skp.txt and tried, and that extension is prohibited, so renamed to .skp.jpg but it failed to work out the dimesions of the 'image'... so I just uploaded a jpg export instead.
There's no top shelf as I've not got enough timber, so leaving the top shelf out until I have, it'll go flush to the wall so gets a bit more support below but no block on top - I'll not put super heavy stuff on the top shelf anyway.
The strange-ish blocks are cuts from the two planks glued together stock, so the cross-section isn't my idea, just what I have to work with, I (hope I) have just enough of it to make the 20 blocks I'll need. The kitchen will be mildly shakery so the square corners on the supports suit pretty well.
The idea is to secure the blocks to the vertical boards with screws from behind, then screw the boards to the wall in the gaps where the shelves slot into (so invisible), then slot in the shelves (the slots are 50mm deep) and vertically screw 2 or 3 long thick screws down through the upper blocks and shelves into the lower blocks (will be pre-drilled, the holes will be centred about 37.5mm in from the rear edge of the shelves so not right at the edge, should help I think.
What I'm wondering is, will this be strong enough ? Not the maple bowing in the middle, it's the block clamping thing I'm concerned about, I'd like the blocks to be deeper but there's not enough wood to make larger ones. I'm thinking the corner will give the shelves more mutual support, they'll be glued and either splined or dowelled (20mm thick), I was thinking I could also put a pocket hole in at the rear of the joins for good measure.
I wasn't planning to glue the shelves in, just for easier re-use of the timber one day; it wouldnt be a great problem to do so but would rather avoid any glue (apart from that joining the shelves into an L shape).
With this design taking up pretty much all the maple I have, I can only put battens (?) along the rear of the shelves to support the full width of the planks by taking it off the shelf depth unless I use another wood, and don't want to do either.
In general the timber is in great condition, all square and lovely, so I'm trying to do as few cuts as possible to save time (I need to get the kitchen operational pretty quickly for obvious seasonal reasons, the fridge and freezer are currently in the lounge !!) and just cutting down on sanding and compounded inacuracies etc.
Any opinons appreciated, especially negative ones, even more especially negative ones with solutions that don't need any more maple
The shelves are away from the wall partly to stop it being a dust collector and to give enough depth for large bowls etc.
...a little later...
I could use the upper support blocks cut down, inverted and attached to the lower ones as in the other image, gives twice as much depth of support but no upper blocks to hold the shelves down, better or worse do you think ? - it adds another join in an easy to spot place and I don't like the look so much, so not really a good solution for me.
