Missing Stile Home Library -- Woodworking Tip #18

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.

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