Home libraries have certainly populated
my woodworking career, and though my design preference for small
shelving units is the Hungarian Shelf; when the collection reaches a
certain size books just feel better “housed” rather than
“shelved,” cozying themselves with walls on five out of six
sides. When used on a huge wall there is something disconcerting,
upsetting, precipitous about Hungarian Shelves...some number on the
Richter Scale being conjured.
For these larger libraries I have often
used the “missing stile” approach as above, leaving the stile
off one side of each vertical bay. Each subsequent carcase slides
behind the stile (vertical) on the one already placed giving the
whole library the look of having been built in place. I have used
this system successfully even in series of six bays. The resulting
junction of the stile and rails is resolved in one of three ways:
the rail is either of considerably less thickness, it's end is
curved, or, in the case above, beveled.
No matter which method, from a design
perspective, the library also avoids a kitchen cabinet look wherein
rails and stiles are sanded flush. One hint with this method is not
to glue the back in its dado, thus allowing ever so little racking,
if required, when the carcases are screwed together.
Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at: FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com
Singular wooden ware + hand carved teaspoons at: FlyingCircusStudios.Etsy.com
