Re Xtra tall bookcases

[Art Ransom]

How would you stand up a 1 piece 9' high bookcase in a room with a 9' ceiling?

[Agki Strodon]

Take it apart and rebuild it?

Agkistrodon

[Charlie Self]

Art Ransom asks:

With great difficulty, or before the ceiling joists are in place. When I built such a unit, I had extra space top and bottom, but still built it in place, instead of in the shop.

Charlie Self "It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man." H. L. Mencken

[Agki Strodon]

Classic story of building a boat in the garage and then finding out it's too wide to get out the door.

Mencken?? You a Mencken fan??

"The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scientists unable to shake off altogether the piety absorbed with their mothers' milk."

HLM

Agkistrodon

[Sliding Dovetail]

The bookcases will shrink if you can increase their speed to nearly that of light.

Or perhaps you could remove a part of the ceiling since it will be hidden by the bookcase when it is moved in place.

[patrick conroy]

Yeahbut - they get really heavy (massive) right?

[patrick conroy]

A little poetic license. I'd akshully try to stand up a 8'10" book case in a room with slightly higher than 9' ceilings. I guess I was asking if anyone had any special tips (tiplets, Thanks Keith) for building stuff larger than commonly available stock.

[Scott Lurndal]

Build it in place.

scott

[Larry Jaques]

On Fri, 02 Jul 2004 09:17:12 GMT, "Art Ransom" calmly ranted:

You build it 8'8ish" tall, put it on a 3" tall base (which is 4" less deep for a bit of a kick), and use crown moulding on the top to hide that last inch of room. Rounding the top back edge of the sides is another trick for the deeper cabinets.

-- "Not always right, but never uncertain." --Heinlein -=-=-

Wondrous Website Design

[Robert Bonomi]

Coming soon, to a theatre near you:

"Honey, I Shrunk the Bookcase!"

[Woody]

I actually asked essentially this exact question about a year ago and got a number of responses. Now, I have the time and have done the research to actually build the bookshelves in my den with 9' ceilings.

Assuming you're assembling the shelves and installing them assembled, you need to have at least 2" clearance (i.e. the shelves need to be at least 2" lower than the ceiling) in order to tip them into place. In addition you typically set the shelves on leveled "runners" (e.g. 2x4) that you've attached to the floor. Hence, the shelves will be 3 or more inches off the floor so you're really looking at something like 8' 6" high shelves. You cover gap at the floor with baseboard molding and the gap at the top with crown molding.

Standard hardwood plywood is 8'x4'. In my neck of the woods, I can also get 10'x4' hardwood plywood, but I can only purchase full stacks rather than small lots. My solution is to build two carcasses, one that will run to 32" high and the second that will attach to the top of the lower carcass and run to the ceiling (or close to it). This will do a couple of things: It will let me use 8' ply (which even if I could get 10', is significantly cheaper), it will be easier to handle and install and the double thickness at 32" will tie into a corner desktop.

A great reference book I found is "Trim Carpentry and Built-Ins" by Clayton DeKorne. It's in the Taunton "Build Like a Pro" series. It has been a huge help. Good luck.

~Mark.