PB Inspired Bookshelves

Bookshelves Fit for a Little Prince

I love how these shelves turned out! I made these shelves for a good friend whom is expecting her first baby in July. I wanted to give her a nice baby shower gift, and wanted to help her create the nursery she had always wanted. She showed me a picture of these shelves from Pottery Barn Kids:

PB Kids Madison bookshelves

I saw them and said, I can make those, pretty easily. Turns out I was right, so I headed over to her house, measured the wall where she wanted to place the shelves and customized her shelves to the measurements. Here is how I made them. 

My cut list:

2 1x6's cut at 48 inches high. (sides)

3 1x6's cut at 30 inches long. (shelves)

5 1x2's cut at 30 inches for the shelf fronts and supports (the bottom shelf is supported by the footer)

1 base moulding cut at appx 32 inches (footer)

I had a picture of the cut list but the pic got erased when my daughter was playing with my camera. Bummer!

The tops of the sides were easy to create. I took a curved piece of wood and traced the tops of the 1x6's. Then cut the shapes with my jigsaw, then sanded down the edges smooth. I then assembled the pieces. 

I laid the pieces out on the ground, I have visualize the literal shape.

I pieced together the sides and shelves and determined the height of them. They are really pretty much 15 inches apart. But I wanted to leave some extra room between the middle and bottom shelf for taller books. You know the really annoying ones with the sound buttons on the sides? 

I glued the sides and shelves together. Waited for the glue to dry overnight. 

Next I added the 1x2 shelf supports for the front of the shelves, and the 1x2 "bars" to help hold the books up. I simply glued these in place then used 1.5 inch countersunk wood screws to secure them. 

I used very inexpensive furring strips as my 1x2's to keep costs down.

Then I added the footer. This was a scrap piece of trim I had lying around. I cut it to cover the bottom of the shelves for stability, and looks and functionality, as I wanted to eliminate another 1x2 for the bottom shelf. I simply glued and attached the footer to the sides and bottom shelf with wood glue and 1.5 inch wood screws. 

Footer 

Next, I added wood filler EVERYWHERE, in the countersink holes, and in the small spaces where all of the pieces connected together. This was ok because the piece was intended to be paint grade anyway. 

I sanded the entire piece down and caulked the tiny inside space where the footer meets the bottom shelf, so no books would get stuck in-between. 

Then I dusted the piece heavily, and took it outside to prime and paint it. 

After spray priming it, I chose the color Heirloom white and sprayed it down....twice. 

Heirloom white, satin finish. 

Allowing paint to dry. 

Subsequently, my daughter was having a total fit about how I could spray paint the grass. She was concerned the grass would never be green again. LOL!

After drying I sprayed it two coats of poly-acrylic protectant. Here are some shots of the shelf "in action". 

Doing a great job of holding those books!

I set this one up in my daughters room just to see how it looked.
It will have to be attached to the wall by a bracket in my friends nursery.

Hope you enjoyed this project. These shelves were so easy to make, I think I may make some for my own children, it will make clean up much easier. 

Thanks, 

Kristen