is it worth it making shelves instead of buying them?

i went to home depot, got some wood and made a 4 feet tall by 1 foot wide, and 8" deep using screws and shelves support, it turned out very nice with 8 little shelf for me to put my CDs on (i can stuff about 500 little jewl case CDs in there), the end was ok IMO and i payed about 15 bucks total in wood, screws and shelf supports. Now i'm trying to follow up with another 6 shelves, this time i'm going for 2 feet wide, and i'm guessing that it'll take me about 20 bucks, so is it worth it or should i just go out and buy one? i saw them selling bookcases for really cheap, a 5 selves is about 30, but it doesn't really fit my needs, so help me out here .

PS: i didn't know that Home Depot cut wood out for you, i had to go home yesterday and used a small saw, it took alot of time and tiring lol, this time i'll tell them to cut the wood for me.

...dunno, I built custom cabinets for four years, and there's nothing better than something you build yourself, as opposed to some assembly line "cookie-cutter" cabinet. I have a cookie-cutter comp desk right now, and it sucks, suits my purposes, but not to a tee. Build your own, if you have the tools, then it's yours, and is EXACTLY what you want...

...will it cost more? Maybe, but if you have to compromise, you won't be happy with a cookie-cutter. If you have the tools, build your own, to your own specs, and you'll love it. And, you can be proud that you built it yourself...

it all depends - is the lower cost worth the time it takes you to build it? or spend a little more and go home and assemble a few screws and your done....

it's time consuming alright, i took me 5 hours last time to built 2, but that was my 1st time touching wood, so i guess it'll be a bit faster this time, the problem with premade shelves is that they really don't fit my need, for instants the CD rack i just made, with the dimension i created, i can stuff 500 cases in a 4' tall by 1' wide, none of the stores carries that stuff. This time i'm gonna trying to make something to put clothes on, because i'm tired of haging them up in the closet, i found some chest with drawers in IKEA but everything is way too expensive, i guess i'll have to wait and see.

im pretty sure home depot rents out tools to. so you would have to used a small saw again

i would say build it yourself warlock. however, a chest with drawers would be tough. drawers that fit well and slide right are hard to make.

facialicious said:

i would say build it yourself warlock. however, a chest with drawers would be tough. drawers that fit well and slide right are hard to make.

Click to expand...

...nah. Get the rollers at Home depot, they'll give you the specs for clearance. Unless you want raised-panel doors, you can do everything with a tablesaw. Get a router, flip it upside down, make a router table out of it, and you can make raised-panel doors. "BLUM" rollers are the best...

the joy of building it yourself is as above - you vcan make it to your specs and also you know that YOU built it

I do my own shelves and I would never buy a cookie cutter shelf to replace them, especially for my desk and CD cabinet. Both of which are below. The computer desk I've had for about a year and recently put a new style of rollers on the keyboard tray. On the CD cabinet, I've had it about the same amount of time and just added the lockable arcylic door to it.






And then my entire computer area. Note the homemade speaker stand to


I'm totally satisfied with all of my homemade furniture and I'm always looking for other things I can build. I'm hopping to build another CD Shelf sometime since I'm running out of room on this current one.

Good luck on your shelves and what you're working on for your clothes.
~C.P.

Will load slowly, but hopefully it'll get to you guys (3k international limit, i think)



Top + shelves are butchered from a 'cookie cutter' cheap computer desk. Unit currently holds my htpc, server + network, printer (htpc serves it, obviously)

Its much better to self build in my opinion, you get what you want, and you learn along the way

The split in the middle is much less noticable in real life, as theres a wooden "tongue" in it to hold it flush now.

Etacovda, that's VERY nicely done. Good example of what one can do with premade and custom made work.

Is there some kinda math to figure out how much the shelves i make can support? This is rather important because i don't wanna crack it since rebuilding it is gonna be so hard, especially when i'm dealing with wood. I hope there is, i'm using 5/8 inches wood BTW, that gives me the best money/area that i can find, moving up to 3/4 inches would cost me an extra dolar for the same dimension.

also take a look at this
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/warlock110/untitled.jpg

This is the sketch of my box, the #1 is what i have, the reason for this is that because i'm buying wood from a store, the dimension is very specific and cutting the wood out would be much easier (using example one, all the shelves will be exactly 1' or 2', much easier to cut) oppose to #2 where the very top and bottom pieces of wood has to be a bit larger than the rest of the shelves, and this propose a problem with cutting the wood and optimizing the costs.

But as you can see, by doing #1 i have to screw side way, and that put the top and bottom pieces under more stress, basicly it's using the 5/8 thickness to support what ever i put on top, i wanna know a way if possible to strengen the support of that piece, would putting "shelves supports" under it helps?

BTW i'm using alot of shelves support for the shevles in the center, do you know how much weight can these things take? thanks alot, i'm kindda a newb to this, and do you guys know any good websites for building simple wood projects?

5/8th inch wood, screwed + glued will hold a LOT of wieght; more than 80kg (160lbs), depending on your dimensions. To make sure its stronger, you could put in a brace under the top section, in the middle - a piece of wood vertically making a T section with the top of the shelving, screwed into the sides + top.

i dont really know about building with wood (mostly logs and ropes) but i think some braces would do the trick if your worried about too much weight...

Celeron_Phreak - you really like your heapphones

i went to lowes today and it seems that they got wood for cheaper than Home depot, they got the 3/4" thick 4 by 8' for only 17 bucks. I'm using those so call "PARTICLEBOARD UNDERLAYMENT" and i'm not sure if it's good enough like plywood, plywood is much more expensive than this, and i think this thing is hard enough, any one got an opinion on this type of wood?

the store call them panels, not wood, but it feels like wood, and it's pretty hard IMO

Actually, I hand those out at the LANs that I host here if someone doesn't have a pair or has no speakers. Comes in handy, and they don't sound half bad