Still riding the router...

Last week's progress

Last week, in "And now for Something Completely Different", I introduced you to my beginnings of our new Library Project. The photo above shows where I left off after January 24th. Here's what I did this week:

Just continuing to use the same techniques so far: rip all plywood to 11.75", measure again and again, add 23/32nd Dado for shelves, then glue it and screw it, I got the rest of the long wall , as well as the area around the window finished. While the cleats in the below photos seem obtrusive in the photos below, I shot those from a ladder. From floor level, they're barely visible (see above photo, left tower) and should be all but invisible once everything is painted white and trimmed out. Normally, the technique would be to place the cleats above the top of the unit, but the design to accommodate 9 foot ceilings with 8 foot stock precluded that technique (8 foot is all I got, there ain't no more, and I didn't want the pedestals any higher than they already are).

Here is this past weekend's progress (Feb. 3rd):

Built and installed the four bookcases between the towers, completing the North wall

Built and installed bookcases on either side of the west wall around window.
This is where I'll add a window seat later, between the two cases beneath the window.

As you can see, it had gotten dark before I finished building the small
set of cases over the window span. Because of the need for exactness here,
this took way longer to accomplish than the other two cases on this wall.

For this upcoming week, I move onto the "south" and LAST wall, where I'll be building a span over the double doors leading into the Library, as well as the last two bookcases that will go there. These cases will be built as "media" cases: shelf spacing will be much smaller, 9 inches or so, rather than the 12 and 13's I've been using so far, in order to accommodate our CDs, DVDs and (yes) VHS, as well as sundry paperbacks. This will mean a LOT more Dadoes, a lot more plywood (small spacing = more shelves = more plywood), AND I'll have to move another outlet.
I'll be "pigtailing" off of this lower outlet on this wall to go up to a new single-pole lightswitch that I'll place in a bookcase, that will then connect to a new outlet I'll place up the wall right above the tops of those bookcases. This is so we can install uplighting around the tops of the bookcases all around the room, activated by this new switch install, for indirect lighting in addition to the main room lights. More on that later...