After moving to my new apartment, I wanted to build a set of bookshelves to match my desk, which became very critical as my apartment came with essentially no storage. Accordingly, I used African Mahogany and metal pipes that I painted black.
At my previous apartment, I’d designed two matching sets of bookshelves that were meant to echo the curve of the unit. These were made using a CNC machine at Techshop, and a fair amount of filing to make all the parts fit well. The end products did not match my new place, so I wanted to start fresh.
After getting the right size pipes, I painted them to match my desk.
Because I needed shelves urgently, I used inexpensive premade Rubbermaid shelves from Home Depot to start.
Shown here are mahogany shelves after joining the boards, drilling holes, and sanding and finishing them.
I had to modify the piping to accommodate the slightly deeper new shelves. This ultimately created a more stable and useful structure. Note the two T-joins at the top of the structure; these provide additional support to the shelves in the middle.
I learned the hard way not to leave boards out in the rain; sadly another set I’d worked on warped in all kinds of unpleasant ways.
Pictured here as well is a festive American Lion skull.