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Shelving Solutions for the Sophisticated Gamer


DoctorEncore

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On 12/23/2020 at 10:11 AM, DoctorEncore said:

Thanks! Yeah I read you should use a fine toothed blade for this type of board, but I was too lazy to go get one. Interestingly, the cuts were very smooth on the deep side of the board. I'm guessing that has to do with which part of the saw touched the laminate.

You can also tape the line you're going to cut and it won't splinter. Just use masking tape.

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Editorials Team · Posted
On 1/19/2021 at 6:31 PM, ICrappedMyPants said:

How do I go about getting started on something like that? I feel overwhelmed at the prospect of doing that. I’m not the most handy, but I’ve learned since owning a house for a few years. I’m decent at things, but I definitely am cautious and take a long time to make things perfect.

Design one, do it, learn from your mistakes.  Repeat.

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Editorials Team · Posted

I already have a thread tracking this project but I guess I could share some details.  To learn from my mistakes if nothing else

These are the custom poplar shelves I did over the last six months:

ecUqHIt.jpgADITX8s.jpg

I made a conscious decision of NOT doing adjustable shelves.  I had to be very, very sure of my endgame for that.  So I basically have a defined scope for what my collection can ever be at this point.  Which can be a good thing, since it forces me to work within certain boundaries.

I also chose poplar because of its strength (which comes with a high cost).  Having sagging shelves in a few years would have been a disaster, as taking any of these out would be a huge endeavor.  Then I gave myself further peace of mind my adding more brackets for support.

I did less spacing on the books since they are generally easier to get out.  With the games, I allowed space so that games can be removed, and so that none of them are bumping up against brackets.  Nothing would stick in my OCD more than a single game in the middle of a shelf sticking out an extra quarter inch.

There are a few gaps and imperfections on the game wall, specifically the first few sections, that were lessons learned.  I was able to easily avoid those mistakes later by paying more attention to any amount of slight warping on the longer boards.  It is what it is.

I also tried to have absolutely zero wasted space.  Hence why I actually went with a shallow, 4 inch shelf on top for the SNES carts.  My wife had big doubts on how that would look, but I think it works great.  Zero games are "positioned up front" that way.

I'm also thinking that the top shelf of books should NOT have been placed on top of the uprights, but I have huge brackets supporting those, so I think it should be fine.  Games are much lighter than those books anyway.

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On 1/19/2021 at 8:31 PM, ICrappedMyPants said:

How do I go about getting started on something like that? I feel overwhelmed at the prospect of doing that. I’m not the most handy, but I’ve learned since owning a house for a few years. I’m decent at things, but I definitely am cautious and take a long time to make things perfect.

Best way to start out is to come up with idea you want and start designing it. When I built mine I measured every systems boxes/cart to get the height and width to figure out a system that would fit the most into it without having a lot of extra spacing. Before I finally built the one shelf I had 4-5 designs that I scraped until I came up with what I thought would look the best. Another thing is making sure you have or can buy/rent/borrow the correct tools for the job. I built mine with adjustable shelfing and tried doing it with just the drill and in doing so caused some holes to be angled so that the shelves don't sit quite level. If you don't want to go the adjustable route one of the best tools I've used for in building things is a pocket hole jig, it allows for the screws to be put in at an angle on the underside and creates a tighter fit and more secure than taking them into the sides. Also search on pintrest/youtube for different ideas and designs. It may seem like a lot of skills are required to build something but honestly you could build some nice looking shelves with minimal skills & tools by having a detailed design plan and the hardware store cutting your boards.

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1 hour ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I already have a thread tracking this project but I guess I could share some details.  To learn from my mistakes if nothing else...

These are the custom poplar shelves I did over the last six months:  So I basically have a defined scope for what my collection can ever be at this point.  Which can be a good thing, since it forces me to work within certain boundaries.

I also chose poplar because of its strength (which comes with a high cost).  Having sagging shelves in a few years would have been a disaster, as taking any of these out would be a huge endeavor.  Then I gave myself further peace of mind my adding more brackets for support.

I did less spacing on the books since they are generally easier to get out.  With the games, I allowed space so that games can be removed, and so that none of them are bumping up against brackets.  Nothing would stick in my OCD more than a single game in the middle of a shelf sticking out an extra quarter inch.

There are a few gaps and imperfections on the game wall, specifically the first few sections, that were lessons learned.  I was able to easily avoid those mistakes later by paying more attention to any amount of slight warping on the longer boards.  It is what it is.

I also tried to have absolutely zero wasted space.  Hence why I actually went with a shallow, 4 inch shelf on top for the SNES carts.  My wife had big doubts on how that would look, but I think it works great.  Zero games are "positioned up front" that way.

I'm also thinking that the top shelf of books should NOT have been placed on top of the uprights, but I have huge brackets supporting those, so I think it should be fine.  Games are much lighter than those books anyway.

Did you do cutouts at the back bottom corners of the shelves to allow room for your baseboards?  That's one thing that really bothers me: having store-bought shelves not be fully against the wall because the bottom hits the baseboards at the back.  So once I've moved into a new house, hopefully in a year or two, I'll be doing custom shelves as well, and having little cut-outs at the back bottom for the baseboards to run through will be the first thing I implement into my designs...

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26 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Did you do cutouts at the back bottom corners of the shelves to allow room for your baseboards?  That's one thing that really bothers me: having store-bought shelves not be fully against the wall because the bottom hits the baseboards at the back.  So once I've moved into a new house, hopefully in a year or two, I'll be doing custom shelves as well, and having little cut-outs at the back bottom for the baseboards to run through will be the first thing I implement into my designs...

If your doing full wall shelves like that I'd recommend pulling the baseboards off and reattaching them to the front. It would give it more of a built in/custom appearance and you wouldn't have to worry about notching out the back piece

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Editorials Team · Posted
1 hour ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Did you do cutouts at the back bottom corners of the shelves to allow room for your baseboards?  That's one thing that really bothers me: having store-bought shelves not be fully against the wall because the bottom hits the baseboards at the back.  So once I've moved into a new house, hopefully in a year or two, I'll be doing custom shelves as well, and having little cut-outs at the back bottom for the baseboards to run through will be the first thing I implement into my designs...

I removed them so that the bottom rows are flush with the wall.

The bookshelves won't quite run the length of the wall, so I'll be reattaching part of the last one, after cutting it.

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Like others have said, I highly recommend removing the baseboard that will be behind the shelves as opposed to cutting out a notch.  It will be a lot easier that way.  If the shelves don't run along the entire wall, you can always run the baseboard up to the edge of the shelf, so it's only missing where the shelves are sitting.  

 

One other option.  If you leave the baseboard in place, cut out some type of spacer that's the same thickness as the baseboard and attach it to the back of the shelving at the top.  This will keep the shelves parallel to the wall with about a half inch gap between the shelves and the wall.  Having the half inch gap isn't a terrible idea, especially if it's on an exterior wall.  

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7 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

I removed them so that the bottom rows are flush with the wall.

The bookshelves won't quite run the length of the wall, so I'll be reattaching part of the last one, after cutting it.

That's a good option for a "forever home" with a stable-sized collection so I'll keep that in mind, but I definitely like the idea of being able to install and move around custom shelves to any walls necessary as a collection expands without having to modify the actual house itself...

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Editorials Team · Posted

Yeah, no concern for me there.  This is the dedicated media room.  Only "room" without a window, built in speakers, built-in console housing and wiring on the north wall, raised seating, etc.

I do plan on building "something" to house the family movie collection/games for the kids out in the family room, and that one probably will be mobile, since my wife just loves to constantly rearrange shit.  

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  • 4 weeks later...

So a long time ago, can't remember how long, maybe a year or more, I managed to find a small 2x2 Ikea cube shelf in my favorite color (the birch wood style) for $20 locally and was able to set it up in my room. At the time I thought it would be enough to store my NP and strat guide collection but I soon discovered that was not the case! The full NP set alone takes up 5 cubes, and at the time I had enough strat guides to take up another cube on top of that, let alone knowing that I would need some room to grow if I was to continue adding more strat guides to the collection. I realized eventually I would want a 4x4 shelf in this space because it's big enough to support that and also it's directly underneath a wall unit AC so even though leakage shouldn't be a concern, I would rather not have anything delicate on top of the shelving unit. 

Well fast forward to last weekend I have this little 2x2 shelf packed to the seams and I have two stacks of Nintendo Power issues sitting on a bench in my room with just nowhere to put them, plus stacks of stuff in my office that also have nowhere to go. On Sunday I was randomly checking my phone as I was getting ready to do errands and lo and behold, there's a 2x4 shelf for sale for $20! I messaged the seller and it was mine. 

As is the norm nowadays it was a contactless pickup, cash in the mailbox and I had to carry the shelf away myself. It was heavier than I expected and for a moment I was afraid that the seller was probably going to be watching me from a window while I tumbled down their front porch stairs and got crushed under the weight of this shelf. Fortunately somehow I managed to make it down the stairs alive and get the thing into my car without any casualties. And my wife got the unique treat of spending Valentine's Day helping me carry a shelf up our sidewalk, porch stairs and then up a full flight of stairs to our room. How romantic!

Pictured below is the shelf finally set up. I realized having a 2x4 is perfect since the full 4x4 would be impossible to move up and down the stairs without disassembling, so eventually I hope to get another 2x4 just like this to go where the 2x2 is now and I can give the 2x2 to my son for his room. For now I have a neat staircase thing going on. And I have the Nintendo Power set filled in from 1 to 285 with some random magazines as placeholder for the issues I'm missing, and the various NP strat guides filled in after that. The rest is a work in progress!

596971DE-37E8-4573-B506-66141BE4E863.jpeg

Edited by MiamiSlice
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I forgot about this thread, but I moved out of that house and switched over to all Billy Bookcases in my new house. I used standard open shelves for the retro stuff, but I put doors on the bottom of the Billy to hide my modern games in the movie room, keeping the viewing atmosphere videogame-free.

Here are all the games and movies crammed together: 

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And here they are put away into the bottom shelves behind doors:

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I'm a big fan of this look. I also moved the drum controller away since that obviously doesn't vibe with the movies-only setup. Now I just need to work on the entertainment centers.

Edited by DoctorEncore
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