Does anyone have any good ideas or patterns for creating a fairly inexpensive set of book shelves? I need to make or buy some bookshelves for our family room but my budget for the project is not very large.
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How inexpensive? If you can live with a painted bookshelf, then use MDF for the carcase. A full sheet of 3/4" MDF is probably about $27. From this you can create a very stable and well-constructed case, including shelves. If you make a simple shelf pin jig, you can use shelf pins to have adjustable shelves. The design is up to you. My point is, you can use MDF to make any joint you want (dadoes, rabbets, pocket hole joints, etc.).
To this you can add wood moldings and a wood face frame. I would suggest poplar, because it is fairly durable and cheap. After you attach the face frame and moldings you can putty the nail holes or whatever and then prime and paint and you're good to go. Adding an edge strip of hardwood to the MDF shelves is a good idea to increase their capacity and avoid sagging. If you can, make the shelves out of hardwood, as well as add the front-edge strip.
Anyway, you could make a pretty good bookcase for probably around $50, maybe less.
Mike
How about the old college dorm trick of 1x10's and bricks?
No, seriously! My Dad did this at one point, only instead of the bricks he cut up 4x4 redwood fence posts into 10" lengths, glued the blocks into slabs and used that for the shelf supports. Every other (or was it every third?) shelf was anchored to the wall studs with angle brackets. A little light-tinted Watco Danish oil and the end result closely matched the existing pine trim of our house. Worked well and was very inexpensive, which was the primary consideration at that time.
CharlesJ
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In my office, I have a set of shelves that are made from white painted metal shelf brackets and white melamine coated boards, all from Home Depot.
For the money, I could not make something less expensive than just buying a used bookcase.
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