shelves on plasterboard wall

[Fred]

Hi,

I have run out of space to store my cds and dvds. I've looked in the shops but not found anything suitable (do you know of anything?). So I was thinking of putting up some shelves, which I might enclose to make a cupboard. That way, it would keep the sun off them and stop them fading. It would be quite a decent size, almost like building a wardrobe.

The walls are plasterboard. I was going to use those slotted bars that you slide brackets into for the shelving. Can I use plasterboard or hollow wall anchors to hold these tot he wall, or would I be best finding the studs to "future-proof" it against heavier loads? If so, can anyone recommend a decent stud detector?

What would I use to fix the cupbaord to the wall?

I'd quite like to have tinted galss doors but I don't know where I'd get the glass from; I guess it's a matter of getting the yellow pages and calling a few glass merchants?

The other thought I had was to get two doors on a rail and have sliding doors, like on a wardrobe. How do these work? Do I need a track on the top and bottom of the doors?

Thanks in advance.

[Rod]

Earlier today I included this in a post here:

"I have used these very ones very successfully for cabinets with real backs."

Doubt I'd be willing to fix them to plasterboard. Find the studs.

Not sure if you mean Spur shelving system or something else. How about bookcase strips? :

[The Medway Handyman]

Spur type uprights have fixing holes at 250mm centres? Never measured, but its about that, so a 1.8m upright will have maybe 8 fixing points - hollow wall anchor in each spreads the load & makes it very strong. Easier to get a sailor off your sister as they say.

Wickes do some nice strong ones

[Andrew Gabriel]

When that happened to me, I copied all my CDs onto my fileserver, and freed up lots of shelf space. I also find that I'm playing them more now that I don't have to fiddle with the cases and load them into a player. I've never much got into DVDs (I think I've only got abut 3:-), but you can do the same with them.

[Rod]

Understood. I still wouldn't do it. But I was actually referring to the cabinet suspension fittings! They would take the entire load of the cabinet and its contents through a single wall plate (up to three screws close together).

[Sparks]

When I ran out of space, I transferred all my disks to several of these sort of things

loads of space, and means you can take them anywhere you want, easily.

I have indexed all my DVD's in Excel, each place in the disk case is marked A1, A2 etc. for the first case, B1, B2 etc for the second, etc.. You can then just do a quick search in Excel, and lay our hands on a particular DVD very quickly!

[Andy Wade]

Spur is still imperial and uses a pitch of 1.25 in. The fixing centres vary between uprights of different lengths, but will always be a multiple of 1.25 in. On the 78 in. upright I'm looking at at the moment it's 12 pitches, i.e. 15 in.

[Vortex2]

Can I use plasterboard or

Stud detector. 7 quid in LIDL from Thursday.

[Richard Russell]

I'm not sure Spur is "still" anything.

says "Spur Shelving Ltd has recently ceased manufacture in the UK". According to the London Gazette the company was dissolved in 2006.

Richard.

reply by email change 'news' to my forename.

[A.Lee]

I had this problem a few weeks ago when fitting a kitchen in a new house. It included 4 shelves going round 2 plasterboard walls.

These walls were the flimsiest walls I have come across since doing this for a job. I knew they were plasterboard walls, so bought a selection of fittings from Screwfix in case of any problems. Of 4 or 5 types tried, only 1 fixing actually worked well - very similar to this one here:

I got them from the local hardware store - the longest available, probably 80mm long, maybe 100mm. They do not have a minimum wall thickness, which I think some of the Screwfix ones do. Once fitted, they were rock solid when tightened - fit them first without shelf brackets, make sure they are tight, then just unscrew, and refit - can be used many times, as they are a set screw, not a wood type screw.

Of the other fittings here:

I could not recommend any for thin plasterboard walls. I tried most of them, and all failed miserably. Also, ITYF that the spacing between the stud fixings is nowhere near the spacing you want to secure the cupboard, so at least one end will be secured into the cavity. Alan.

[The Medway Handyman]

I use the 5 x 52mm ones all the time. Agreed very strong fixing. The setting tool is well worth £6.50 if you are using them regularly

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[Andy Wade]

Oh bugger, that's a shame.

[John Rumm]

There are quite a few very close compatibles though...

[Fred]

I haven't heard of all the brand names being mentioned so far but these from Wickes are the kind of thing I was thinking of. Especially if I do enclose the shelves, they won't be on view so it won't matter what they look like.

[Fred]

I have heard of people doing this and it sounds good in theory but how does it work in practice? I understand you copy the cds to a hard drive but how do you choose the cd and track from the hdd later? It's easy enough if you are at your desk and can use a mouse to click a menu but isn't the idea with these that you get the disc menu on your tv? How do you select from the tv? Surely you need some sort of remote control that interfaces with your pc; does such a thing exist?

[Fred]

But what happens to your (now) empty cd cases? Surely they have to be stored somewhere? Do you index each track on a cd or how else do you know if you want a particular song?

[Fred]

Thanks. I was thinking of using this type of hollow wall anchor. I am amazed that such a tiny thing can hold a kitchen cupboard laiden with heavy pans, crockery, etc. onto a plasterboard wall. I would have expected only brick walls could be used to support these.

I agree the plastic varieties on the link provided look a bit flimsy. I have found the metal easy drivers useful in the past, though not for this type of thing.

Thanks again.

I think that's the shelving part sorted, now does anyone know about sliding doors?

[Fred]

Thanks. I've never quite understood how these things work. Is it just a metal detector that detects the nails in the studs? If so do you have to find two nails and imagine a line between them where the stud lies or is it something far cleverer than that?

[geoff]

In message , Fred writes

I have one of these

yes you can operate it with a remote control

[Andrew Gabriel]

I believe such things exist, but I have a PC which is on all the time anyway, and playing a track or selection of tracks from that is very much simpler than going to the bookcase, selecting a CD, going to the player, putting it in, turning on the amp, selecting CD source, selecting CD track(s), and not forgetting that you will have found the previous CD in there which you now have to put back into its library case and put back on the shelf...