How to Make an Inexpensive Bookcase

Are you needing a cheap but effective way to store items in your home or a place to put your books? If so, then you will be glad to know that a cheap bookcase can be built from a few milk or fruit crates at little to no cost. Then you can store your items on the shelves or you can place the books on the shelves and unpack and enjoy your home.

In order to build your bookcase, you will need a few materials to get started with. First you will need some milk or fruit crates. These can be obtained for little or no cost from a grocery store, fresh produce store, or farmer’s market. Next you will need some zip ties. These can be found for very little cost at the neighborhood dollar store. Finally, you will need a knife to cut the ends off of the zip ties once you have used them. With all of these materials obtained, you can begin making your own bookcase.

The first step to making your bookcase is to place four milk or fruit crates on their side flat against the floor of the room you are placing your bookcase in. Then use the zip ties to attach these crates to one another by weaving and fastening the zip ties tightly through the mesh on the sides of the crates where they meet one another. This will create the foundation of your bookcase.

Next, make another row of four milk or fruit crates that are stacked on their sides against the foundation row. Again use the zip ties to attach these to one another and to the foundation row by weaving them tightly through the side mesh of the crates. This creates the second shelf of your bookcase. Continue to repeat this process of making rows of four milk or fruit crates and attaching them to one another with the zip ties until the bookcase is about four shelves high and four compartments wide. At this point, your bookcase will be complete.

Should you want to make the bookcase larger in the future, it can easily be expanded by adding more milk or fruit crates to the sides and top of it. Make sure that you use zip ties to attach each new row of crates to the previous crates in order to maintain the strength of the entire bookshelf. Also, make sure that you always place heavy objects on the bottom of the bookcase and not on the top. I have made the mistake of making this type of bookcase top-heavy and it has fallen over on me before. Therefore, do not place heavy objects high on this bookcase for safety reasons.

The total cost for the construction of a bookcase of this sort should be less than 10 dollars. I have also found that I can construct a bookcase of the size given in this article in about two hours. As sturdy as I have found this style of bookcases to be, I would recommend that anyone build one. Also, I can think of no better way to be environmentally friendly than to recycle milk and fruit crates into a useful structure for one’s home.

Sources

Personal Experience

“Storage Place Quickly Built With Crates,” Backwoodsman Magazine (September 2011 issue)

“How to Build a Bookcase,” TLC Home


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *