Hello Everyone,
I am in the process of designing built in shelves for my living room. These will be the typical cabinet with doors on the bottom and open bookshelves above. The fireplace sticks out into the room forming two alcoves that these builtins will go in. The mantle wraps around the fireplace and into the alcoves which limits the width of the bookshelf portion of the built-in. The lower cabinet does not have this limit so could be wider to maximize storage space. Since the upper shelves will only be supported by the plywood top of the lower cabinet I am worried if the lower cab is too wide there will not be sufficient support for the upper cab.
The current design has the upper shelves at ~40 inch wide centered on the lower cab which will be about 46 inch wide. The upper cabinet will need to be attached to the top from below due to clearance issues. Does it seem like there would be any support issue if I use a 3/4 inch thick birch plywood cabinet top with <3 in offset between the sides of the upper cab and the lower cab? Should I take any extra steps to add some reinforcements? reduce the offset?
Thanks
Ryan