Tree Design Bookshelf

[james glenn]

Thanks guys.

Mel - she already has her own art easel, one side for chalk the other for dry erase marker, then it has a role of paper to draw/paint on. We get her some time on that nearly every day. She's only 19months old, but she loves drawing.

[Mark Blatter]

Nice concept . Children really benefit from seeing imaginative and unusual spatial configurations . Do yourself a favor and draw a picture of it with her.

I have been looking at different versions of this book case and yours is one of the of the best. I have been wanting to make one for my grandkids, but I have always had this little voice urging caution in the back of my mind. My third daughter (fourth child) started climbing standard bookcases at about 10 months. By 20 months old we would routinely find her perched on top of an old style upright (5' tall) piano. I keep looking at these bookcases and every time I see stairs instead of shelves.

I still love the look and feel that these give to a kids room and may try it out one of these days.

[Mark Bolton]

For fastening this to the wall....

Assuming of course because of the thickness of the lower main members (trunk) they will be hollow, why couldnt you cut ply or solids that would get screwed to the wall, then you would slip the hollow (no backs) trunk forms over that ply ledger (of sorts) and fasten into the ply. The fasteners could be plastic capped as they would barely be seen. The smaller stems/limbs on the wall the he left look like they may be thick enough for the same treatment?

[james glenn]

Mark - Great suggestion, however at the time I did not think of that, mostly because I did not want to use screws or any fasteners for this project. It was not until I built parts of it and started to assemble that I realized the wall attachment difficulties. Before finishing, this thing actually was in place without any wall attachments for 4 months or more and it held books without issue and probably could have been placed with only a ledge to stop it from sliding down. But for safety reasons I wanted more.

The trunk and two branches to the right are plywood sides with shop made veneer and the top and bottom are 1/4" thick with interior supports, so the ledgers would have worked great. I am now working to finish the branches on the adjacent wall and will look at trying this.

So far my daughter has not tried to climb this, only climbs chairs, but we try to keep an eye on her to see how she interacts with it. She does love picking out her books for story time each night though.