Wow, lazygardens, that looks great. We're having shelves made for a weird corner in our LR. I priced Billy bookcase components at IKEA at about $800 (IKEA is six hours from us, plus we'd have to rent a trailer to take it all home). We got four bids from local carpenters, and the guy with the best customer recommendations also came in the cheapest, at $1100. We have a lot of friends who are delighted with their Billys, so if you're near an IKEA I'd take a look. (there are also a ton of Web commentaries on using these: I found one hilarious article titled, "Pimp my Billy," about innovative reimaginations of Billy bookcases...) THere are doors that can fit on Billy units, turning them into cabinets. There's also the Benno shelving, which is pricier but I think better-looking. If you want ideas on how to make IKEA components work for you, go over to ikeafans.com and post a query. The folks over there are hugely helpful. If you go with a contractor, and if your area is anything like mine, you'll be waiting a while and doing a fair amount of pursuit. Tradespeople are just incredibly busy right now. The guy we hired had just finished making the cabinetry and built-ins for friends of ours, so we got to see his (beautiful) work installed before making a decision. I'd recommend you do that. And expect delays, expect to have to chase them, all of that. Not fun, but it seems to be almost universal right now re home renovation.

Exactly, I use museum putty for knick-knacks. I've built ones that can hold normal books. Our local library has a "free book" bin, for remnants that don't sell at the annual spring sale. If no one takes them, they get tossed. While I hate recommending this, if you found some old discarded hardcover books you can remove the pages from the hard cover and insert a section of styrofoam in place of the pages. That'd give you a shelf of lightweight books. I have seen someone use "book spine" wallpaper for a similar effect. It looked okay in dim lighting. Another alternative would be a few "real" books on the hinge side of the shelf, and knick-knacks on the latch side. Keeping the weight closer to the hinges will help prevent sagging.

The hinges were the most difficult thing to figure out. I ended up going with heavy duty swing clear hinges (from Hardware Source and then carefully placed the frame trim so that it covered most of the hinges. You can see the barrel of the hinge protruding from the right edge of the trim in the first picture above. Note that to get the trim to fit down over the hinge, I needed to route out large notches in the back of the right side trim piece. The other big difficulty was remembering enough of college trigonometry to figure out how much the sides of the cabinet needed to slope in at the back of the cabinet so that the door would be able to swing open. (In my case the answer was 12.5 degrees) The total cost for this project breaks down as follows: $150 - wood (2 10' 1x8 poplar, 1 4' 1x8 poplar, 2 10' 1x3 poplar, 1 4'x8' sheet plywood, 1 pre-primed paint grade door frame) $90 - swing clear butt hinges $100 - pocket screw jig kit I don't have a secret compartment in the bottom of the bookcase, but I think I will put one there that will be accessible from the inside of the closet.

Hello from Southern California, I wonder if some of you can give me some pointers. I recently had a contractor built a custom built-in bookcase but I am not happy with it. I am thinking of redoing it but not sure where to start or even possible with the budget constrain. The bookcase dimensions: H X W X D (74 X 34 x 9"). There will be three floating shelves and three cabinet doors below the shelves. Initially I was going with a German system but they refused as it's too small of a project. Budget up to 12 K. Searched local area and found one that has decent quality material and track record. They will charge 12K for the dimensions aforementioned. I was not too keen on paying if it's was not a German system. Maybe I have unrealistic expectations. I have looked further and seen that California Closet offers custom built to exact dimensions. I am not too keen on California Closet as they only have laminates as their materials. Does anyone know any builders (preferable server Southern California) who can help with my project? The bookcase contemporary style so things have to have all the line straight etc. I also prefer wood veneer or maybe even solid wood. As for budget, I am hoping that it will be less than 10 K if it's not a German system. I wonder if my expectations are unrealistic given the budget.