Thank you! Appreciate some good advice on this thread.

Incredible, thanks for documenting! I enjoyed following the sliding gate project too.

bco2003 said:

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I enjoyed following the sliding gate project too.

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Thanks! That was a really fun project. We're still really happy to have it, too.

Ohhhh. You're the gate guy too? Wow. You got skeelz

For anyone else following along that has seen gate references and had no idea what people were talking about, I had to go find it to see

https://texags.com/forums/61/topics/3198203/1

Man, that's a trip down memory lane to open. I still get a kick out of akaggie05 making fun of my floor jack post puller.

I really liked both this library and that gate project because they were very challenging projects and really stretched my skills. But very different projects.

We should do a Home Improvement "best of" bracket sometime. There's so many good ones posters have done over the years. That'd be a fun one to include on the list, but my money would be on something like the Fife or vmaptetr's remodels.

That's not fair to those of us that are too lazy to stop and take pictures during a build.

Yep. Though he's not done yet.

I just think it'd be cool to revisit some of the highlights from the board. Lot of talented people.

dubi said:

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Honestly i think Fife wins for rebuilding his entire house room by room!

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Yeah I need to update that thread for the latest project already. Contractors wrapped up their end a while ago and I'm at the point where there's only a dozen more tiles to set, seal, and grout while I continue moving my stuff back into the den.

Guess there's also getting a fishtank for that built in thing between the den and foyer but that might have to wait until the ex is paid off.

edit: OP's carpentry skills and tools are far better than mine. I'm still debating on what to do with the bookshelf situation in the den but that 135 degree angle the wall takes at the end of the run is a bear to figure out

Wall takes a 45 degree turn into the room. This area was a garage that was offset 45 degrees from the rest of the house back in the 1950s, which is great when you're using it as a garage because it's oversized. Not so much after someone turns it into a den.

The bookshelves I'll be doing will run up to about 10' high and there's a fishtank opening in the wall between two rooms so I'll need to make a pair of doors for the alcove below it (where the pumps and other stuff will go). It'll all be birch with a clear finish, no detailing or anything in order to fit the style the rest of the room is.

I'll grab a picture in a little bit

'Scuse the mess, this is the area I'm dealing with. From the fishtank hole on the right to where it would run out on the angled wall to the left.

Height will be the same as the space above the fishtank hole. Overall 10' high by 10' 9.75" wide, although it's in 3 pieces so to speak. The area to the left of the fishtank, the area above, and the area below. I do not plan on covering the room-facing drywall on the sort of frame that can be seen in the picture so it really is 3 separate parts.

Can't do the above/below fishtank parts yet because I need that first. There will need to be a space above it big enough for me to perform maintenance, and shelves below big enough for pumps and filters to sit on. I'm doing freshwater, so it could be worse.

Interesting. I'll sketch an idea or two up later this week. I still really like how that house is turning out.

I was making a joke about the 136 degrees at my expense from earlier in the thread.

"135... 136... whatever it takes!"
- Framers

The sketch I had somewhere has a vertical piece right where the wall takes that angle in.Shelves to its right would be ~32-33" wide. Probably going to use birch veneer as a backing rather than have the drywall show. I'll need something at the end of the wall run for shelves to attach to anyway. LED lighting would be nice because I plan on using some of the shelves for pottery my mom made in the craft area at the MSC years ago. That doesn't play nice with them being adjustable though.

Overall depth about 1/2-3/4" short of the drywall in the existing frame, or ~16"

The style is cool, and a little about the aquarium... the size of the opening between rooms in the wall is the standard size of a 125 gallon aquarium plus a little over an inch. A big thing I never took into account when deciding to have a fishtank was the lid will be about 6.5' up in the air. I'll have to feed them while standing on the stair landing.

There's always a chance that I won't get one and then I'll just use the opening to put art on. I'll need to take into account shelving on the den side being able to run down to the top of the opening + a little in case that's what ends up happening. From a practical perspective getting an aquarium is at least a year away.

Floating shelves are cool; I'd need to have a better idea of what would actually go on them since I've always thought of those as being the kind of things that are fixed in place. There aren't a huge amount of books here but there is some art and I also decorate with clean, empty space. The more that I think about it I think you're right about it being ok for the drywall to be visible. Assuming the overall profile of actual shelves is "L" shaped that does leave room for lighting to be put in. Shelves that are fixed in place make a lot more sense in that regard.

Need to update the project thread soon... I just wrapped up leading an RCCA yesterday evening so this is the first time I've been able to actually sit down and think in a while.

I understand what you mean about adjustable shelves. FWIW, on this project for the library, I don't think we'll ever adjust the shelves, and had I just made them fixed, it would have worked just fine. But I get it, and I think if I was going to do adjustable on the left in your case, I'd built a box with a 135 degree back corner, and install that first. Then I'd come back with face trim.

Regarding the "L" shape - you could totally do it that way and add lighting. I had envisioned a couple of supports attached to the wall, and then cladding a bottom/top/front to give the effect that it's one thick piece of wood in this case. You could still add a dado track on the bottom for a lighting strip. I don't think there's just one way to do that.

At a minimum, I think you've got a lot of options.