Custom Shelving Units

We recently completed a job involving the design, fabrication and installation of custom shelving units. The job was done for a home owner in Fayette County. The shelves now house a collection of LPs, 45s, CDs, and video DVDs.

This blog posts details the design, fabrication and installation process used on this job.

Before hiring us, the customer had a shelving unit for CDs that did not offer enough storage capacity and was not aesthetically pleasing. There was no storage in the room for his collection of over one thousand LPs and 45s.

This before picture illustrates the need for more CD storage.

This is a before picture taken that shows more of the previous inadequate storage space.

In the case of this project, the customer had a good idea of what he wanted and provided a drawing indicating his vision for the project.

Customer's initial drawing indicating the project requirements.

After meeting with the customer, we used his drawing and our notes from the initial consultation to create preliminary drawings and a cost estimate.

 As part of the estimating process we created some very preliminary drawings for the project.

CD Unit Preliminary Drawing

DVD Unit preliminary drawing

Album Unit Preliminary Drawing

We decided that three distinct units would be designed, fabricated, and installed:

LP or Album Unit

The album unit includes adequate space to house a collection of over 1000 LPs and Albums
This unit reaches floor to ceiling. The unit is about 13 inches in depth to accommodate the depth of LPs.

There is a 2ft. wide section of shelving that accommodates 45s  this section has a 3 inch lip on the front of the shelf.

The bottom of the unit is sized to accommodate the storage of guitar amplifiers.

CD Unit

The CD unit is the largest of the three units. It is over 8 feet in length.

The bottom of the unit is sized to accommodate the storage of guitar amplifiers.

This is attached to  the DVD unit in the corner of the room 

DVD Unit

The DVD unit is the smallest of the three units. It is a little over 3 feet in length. The DVD unit attaches to the CD unit in the corner of the room

Material:

The home in which these units were installed contains some beautiful hardwood floors. All of the interior doorways are trimmed in oak. Baseboards are made of oak.  All of the doors that we saw in the home appeared to be made of solid oak. Apparently a previous owner of the house was a woodworker and put a great deal of time into the trim and doors in this house. It was therefore, our intention to compliment the beautiful woodwork in this house with our shelving units.

The units were constructed of furniture grade materials. Pine and oak were used. All highly visible parts are oak.  Minwax Golden Oak Stain was selected to compliment the shade of stain on the floor and woodwork in the room. A rich and glossy finish was attained through the careful application of high gloss spar varnish. All of the stain and varnish was rubbed into the material with cloths. The rubbing ultimately brought out the grain of the wood very nicely!

In order to maintain a built-in and formal look, the units were trimmed with oak shoe mold and crown molding was installed at the top.

These are sample pieces that were provided to the customer before we began fabrication. This was done to verify that the finish and stain shade was acceptable. The top piece is oak. The middle piece is furniture grade pine. The bottom piece is oak shoe molding.

This is hardwood paneling that is in one of the rooms of the house

This is a sample of the hardwood floor in the home.

These are some of the pieces of the album unit during the staining and finish process. The material for a particular unit was stained and finished before fabrication of the unit began. These pieces were only left in the sun long enough for the stain to dry. Any longer in the sun would have presented a risk for warping of the material. By the way, the jeep visible in the background is not for sale...just a project that we have not had time to finish yet.

This is the completed album unit in our shop. 

The completed album unit just prior to transport.

The album unit in the house. The header pieces nor the crown molding had been installed at this point.

This picture was taken during installation. The first section of the CD unit is attached to the album unit.

Here the CD unit is completely installed and the Lovely Shane makes notes regarding the upcoming DVD unit installation.

This is another view of the CD unit and Album unit during the on-site portion of the installation.

These are some of the parts of the DVD unit during the staining process at our shop.

This is a section of the hardwood backing that we used on the units. This was taken just prior to the DVD unit fabrication.

The Lovely and Awesome Shane helping with the stain application process. This picture was taken in our shop.

This is a picture of some of the crown molding during the staining process.

This is one of the header pieces for the DVD unit.

DVD unit during fabrication

This is the Lovely and Awesome Shane with our finished product. Notice that the Album unit (in front of Shane) has been stocked by the customer, with a collection of over 1000 LPs and a bunch of 45s. The CD Section is partially stocked.

The Lovely and Awesome Shane literally adds a finishing touch here.

This is a picture of the completed album unit. The shelves are loaded with LPs. Notice the second shelf from the bottom
in this picture. On the far right, just past the divider support the edge of the 45 storage area is visible.

This picture shows the corner. The DVD unit on the right is secured to the CD unit on the left. A very nice piece of oak material connects the units together leaving no visible gap.

In this picture the detail of the individual shelves is visible. The Spar Varnish gives the piece a nice, rich glossy appearance. The outer edges of the shelves are capped with oak shoe mold. The Spar Varnish  makes the piece more water resistant and easier to clean.

This picture shows the quality of the material. This is the material before the staining process has been done. The piece on the left is a 1"X 8" piece of furniture grade pine. The piece on the right is a 1"X 12" piece of furniture grade oak. Great care was taken to position and cut the pieces so that the prettiest grain was visible on the face of the finished piece.

In this picture, William is sanding a piece of oak that will become a side piece for the Album unit

In this picture, we were pre-fitting the hardwood plywood back to the album unit. The plywood at this stage is not permanently attached and has not been stained. You can clearly see the beauty of the material that we used for the back of the units in this picture.

In order to verify the fit, we borrowed a few representative pieces of the recordings that would ultimately be stored on the shelves. This is a picture of one of the LPs during the fitting process. 

We are grateful to have been given the opportunity to work on this project. We have a satisfied customer and we are really proud of the finished product.

If you have a need for customized cabinets or shelves, please contact us! We would love to do another one of these projects soon!


-William Moore
Owner

William Moore Lawn and Handyman Services
fayettelawnmoore@gmail.com
678-702-4791