Woodworking Conundrum

[Brian Henderson]

I've got a friend who I had helped build a bunch of open bookshelves for his house about a year ago. He and his wife just got a new puppy and it's gotten in the habit of lifting his leg on the bookshelves. My friend wants to retrofit his bookshelves with some kind of door on the bottom shelf to keep the puppy from ruining whatever he's got down there, mostly books and DVDs. I immediately thought sliding doors, but since these are bookshelves that are already finished, cutting slots all the way from end to end is going to be difficult. Any ideas?

And before someone suggests that they just take things off the shelves until the puppy is housebroken, his wife is also pregnant, expecting sometime in April, so these are going to serve a double purpose, keeping little fingers off things they shouldn't be playing with too.

[Mark Bolton]

Depending on the design it may just be easier to make a fixed shelf and a faceframe and doors in the shop and just bring it there and install it. Fixed shelf with two doors below? You could leave off the stiles and simply pocket screw the faceframe in place. Fitting the fixed shelf may take a bit of scribing but...

Hard to say without seeing the shelves

[Jamie Buxton]

.. since these are bookshelves that are already finished, cutting slots all the way from end to end is going to be difficult. Any ideas?..

Cut the slots in a piece of 1x2, then screw the slotted 1x2 to the cases. Okay, you probably don't need all the meat of a 1x2, but you see the idea. I think I've seen someplace plastic or aluminum extrusions built exactly for this purpose. (http://www.wwhardware.com/kv-sliding...ass-doors-kv24)

Of course, if the puppy pees on the door, the urine will collect in the slots, and be difficult to clean out...

[Brian Henderson]

I had someone send me a PM and made some similar suggestions for swinging doors. Actually, that was something I had briefly thought of, but since I was posting at 3am and dog-tired, probably didn't explain it well at all. The fixed shelves themselves are probably 12-18" tall and between 4-6' long, they are just tall enough for books or DVDs. Having an 18" tall door, 3' long at ankle-to-knee height is probably not doable which is why I immediately thought of sliding doors. I'm not so worried about the puppy, as I said, he'll get housebroken pretty quickly, I'm more concerned about having a baby crawling around, chewing on books and dragging hundreds of DVDs all over the floor. It's not my house so I don't have pictures, although if I get over there in the coming week, I'll ask him if I can post some. We made 8 floor-to-ceiling units in 3 different rooms, it would be a massive undertaking to throw them all away and start over to incorporate a design change.

Honestly, there might not be a good solution here, he just asked me about it yesterday and I'm trying to come up with some good alternatives.

[Brian Henderson]

Cut the slots in a piece of 1x2, then screw the slotted 1x2 to the cases. Okay, you probably don't need all the meat of a 1x2, but you see the idea. I think I've seen someplace plastic or aluminum extrusions built exactly for this purpose. (http://www.wwhardware.com/kv-sliding...ass-doors-kv24)

Great solution, but if you add height to the shelf, anything behind the shelf becomes trapped inside. As an example, we made the shelves just high enough for a DVD and a finger on top to pull it out. You just got me thinking about something else. Each unit is a completely different size, they were built to fit into specific spots in his house, the one we put in his living room for DVDs would have to have face-frames added because the shelves are *EXACTLY* the size of the DVDs, they come right out to the front edge, there isn't room to add a track anyhow.

Wow, this is more difficult than I thought.

[Jamie Buxton]

For wide but short doors, you can use the garage door concept. The door is hinged at the top, and swings up to open. There are supports to hold the door open. Or if you have the height, the open door can slide back inside the cabinet -- they're often called pocket doors. Maybe you store the DVDs lying down, not standing on edge.

[Brian Henderson]

For wide but short doors, you can use the garage door concept. The door is hinged at the top, and swings up to open. There are supports to hold the door open. Or if you have the height, the open door can slide back inside the cabinet -- they're often called pocket doors. Maybe you store the DVDs lying down, not standing on edge.

Actually, the lifting door might be useful, you could even put a lock at the bottom to keep the kid from lifting the door. Good idea!

[Brian Henderson]

Alright, just got off the phone with my friend and he agreed that the best design is a lift door, although because these are bottom shelves, it will be a drop door (you can't really see what's on the shelf if you lift the door). He says they're restricting the puppy to just one or two rooms so that's all he's going to worry about right now. We're going to work out a design during the week and next weekend, I'll go over, help him build and install the doors, which will consist of mortised in hinges, a magnetic catch (possibly key lock, he isn't sure) at the top and a chain to keep it from opening too far. He's considering whether he wants a glass insert or just a solid panel.

Now my question, and I'm sure nobody has ever even considered this, is what finish to use that will resist puppy pee. Currently, his shelves are all oak stain with spray poly. I'm assuming that will stand up to abuse, especially if they're wiping up the mess as soon as they find it, but I really don't know that anyone has tested it. I mean, what would you do, take a test piece to the bathroom with you?

[Jamie Buxton]

Alright, just got off the phone with my friend and he agreed that the best design is a lift door, although because these are bottom shelves, it will be a drop door (you can't really see what's on the shelf if you lift the door). He says they're restricting the puppy to just one or two rooms so that's all he's going to worry about right now. We're going to work out a design during the week and next weekend, I'll go over, help him build and install the doors, which will consist of mortised in hinges, a magnetic catch (possibly key lock, he isn't sure) at the top and a chain to keep it from opening too far. He's considering whether he wants a glass insert or just a solid panel.

Now my question, and I'm sure nobody has ever even considered this, is what finish to use that will resist puppy pee. Currently, his shelves are all oak stain with spray poly. I'm assuming that will stand up to abuse, especially if they're wiping up the mess as soon as they find it, but I really don't know that anyone has tested it. I mean, what would you do, take a test piece to the bathroom with you?

To a great extent, fluids that hit and drip off are not a problem; the exposure is only for a few minutes. What is a problem is puddles. If the fluid puddles on the upper edge of the lower rail in a frame-and-panel door, or if it dribbles down to there and then into the dado which holds the panel -- well, you'll have a problem. Slab doors would be better. Also, if your doors are hinged at the bottom, you have the potential for urine to puddle on and around the hinge mortise -- again causing problems.

[Brian Henderson]

To a great extent, fluids that hit and drip off are not a problem; the exposure is only for a few minutes. What is a problem is puddles. If the fluid puddles on the upper edge of the lower rail in a frame-and-panel door, or if it dribbles down to there and then into the dado which holds the panel -- well, you'll have a problem. Slab doors would be better. Also, if your doors are hinged at the bottom, you have the potential for urine to puddle on and around the hinge mortise -- again causing problems.

Like I said, he hasn't decided what design he wants for the doors, I'm leaving that up to him but might suggest slab doors if he doesn't want a glass inset. He won't have to worry about the hinges, they will be mounted to the inside of the shelf and the inside of the door, it would be really, really hard for the puppy to hit them at all. I'm just trying to make things easy for him, this is his first kid and his first puppy, I'm lucky none of mine were a problem at that age.

[John Sanford]

Use shades. Essentially, just use window shades and install a catch/lock mechanism on the bottom. You can use a single shade all the way at the top, or one top and one in the middle, whatever. While not as impenetrable as doors would be, this would be much simpler to implement.