Bookcase Suggestions

[Jason Burch]

I have a small home office, 2 walls of which have the bottom 32" of wall sticking out 5" out from the rest of the wall creating a small ledge around the room. The usable space on the 2 walls is 110" and 130".
I am trying to come up with ideas for bookcases/display storage on one of the walls and have found many floor to ceiling bookcase examples, and base cabinet with bookcase on top examples on the web, but the ledge in this room keeps throwing me off.

I imagine no matter what I do I will build in manageable width sections and use a face frame/molding to hide the "seams" With the room being small I need to minimize the depth of the bookcase(s) - 11" max at its deepest from the upper section of the wall.

Assuming I built a few cases and sat them on the ledge there would be a 6" overhang, and a huge lack of stability. I contemplated building out studded "half" wall" that would make the ledge a full 10 or 11" deep but the 32" high x 6" deep wall length section of space surely could be put to use.

I thought about building VERY shallow 6" cabinets (think CD or DVD storage) but butting them against the existing ledge and then using the combo of the ledge and cabinet to put the cases on seems like a bad base or foundation.

Any thoughts or suggestions? This is my first project of any size, I think I may be over thinking it agonizing in Sketchup with potential ideas.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Jason, I would make the top and bottom cases the same depth, and stagger them to fit your wall.

You wouldn't need any trim between them, and I would make the lower case slightly higher than the ledge.

The top case could then be attached to the wall with small hidden angle brackets to keep it from bowing out. (Don't rest it on the sill, it won't be level).

If you move the cases could be restacked in the same plane, to use as a standard bookcase.

Regards, Rod.

[Eric DeSilva]

Why not reverse the normal... Build 32" high base cabinets that are--say--11" deep and put doors on 'em. Build uppers that are 16" deep. They will end up flush, and just look like normal floor to ceiling shelves.

Or did I misunderstand something?

[Jason Burch]

While both of those ideas are great, due to obstructions on oposing walls (door etc) and overall room size I can not have the book case extend any further than 11" from the deeper wall section (or 6" from the shallow section).

Eric's idea would work assuming I built 32" high and 6" deep base cabinets (which I have considered for shallow storage) but placing the 11" deep book case ontop of a 6" cabinet and 5" ledge seems problematic (from a leveling, and stability standpoint).

Who on earth thought a 5" ledge around the room was a good idea must have been crazy :-) (its 2x4 frame atop 32" of block)

Jason

[Rod Sheridan]

Eric's idea is a good one, just forget about resting anything on the ledge.

Make your base cabinet 1/2" higher than the highest point of the ledge.

Rest your top cabinet on the bottom cabinet, attach the top cabinet to the wall with concealed metal corner brackets.

It'll look good, be stable and won't involve playing around with the ledge.

Regards, Rod.

[Chris Schoolland]

Could you tear out the ledge wall? Sounds like you're covering it anyway.

Chris