Wine Bottle Bookshelf

Miss Ginger needed a bookshelf for the craft room, and, having blown her budget on gadgety whoo-ha's for the Sewing Center, needed to come up with something on the cheap.  But of course, it mustn't look "cheap".  Plastic, laminate, and such would just not do! Not wanting to spend money on lumber or time on painting it, Miss Ginger remembered seeing some intriguing posts on Pinterest about making bookshelves from wine bottles, a resource that is certainly plentiful around Chez Ginger! Always a big fan of green-thinking and reusing resources, Miss Ginger found these  posts failed on 2 primary criteria for up-cycling. First, the recycled material was obvious... it was clearly a wine bottle. In this case, Miss Ginger was willing to give a pass, since she thinks that the various shades of green glass in wine bottles are pretty, and many of the labels are works of art in themselves.  (She developed this appreciation for wine label art about the same time she discovered how effective modern-day wine label adhesives are at preventing said art from being removed!)  Her second concern were that the designs of the bookshelves were not well-conceived.  One had staggered the bottles to make the linking mechanism work.... ugly. Another used visible hardware to sort of strap the whole thing together... again, ugly.  Still a third doubled up the center shelves, presumably to make the structure stronger? And uglier, not to mention wasting an entire board!

So, she set to work to figure out the perfect up-cycled bottle bookshelf.  Here's how she pulled it together.

She chose paint-grade finger-jointed pine for the shelves, since it is the cheapest "solid wood" product at the lumber yard.  MDF and particle board won't work for shelves, since there is no structural strength. Finger-jointed pine is actually small scraps of pine by-product from the manufacture of other lumber products, so, in a way, it is up-cycled lumber... and it looks kind of "wine-cellarish!"   She cut her shelves to the same width, added a platform edge to bottom shelf for rigidity, and drilled a quarter inch hole in each corner of every shelf.

Next, on the underside of each shelf, she used a 1 1/8" bit to drill a 1/4 inch deep hole with the same center, to provide a recess to lock the levels together.

Each "layer" will consist of 1 board, with 4 bottles attached, so after choosing 4 bottles of the same height for each layer, she drilled a small hole in the bottom using a Dremel tool with a 1/4" glass drilling bit.  With the holes drilled, she needed to get a 3" carriage bolt through the hole from the inside, so she used sticky wax (from a Babybel Gouda she had in the fridge) on a skewer to carry the nut through the neck of the bottle.

Once the bolt was in place, she could hold it with one hand, and twist the skewer with the other to separate the two, leaving the bolt in position and the skewer ready for it's next target!

With the bolt in position she needed to hold it still while turning on a nut from the bottom (stop giggling!) so she used the little screwdriver from her Mother's first sewing machine taped onto a length of dowel. (She knew she had kept that little orange screwdriver all these years for a reason!)

This little jury rig worked perfectly to hold the bolt while the nut was added from below.

Here's the first "layer", with all four bottle bolted firmly into place.  The next layer was created the same way, with the larger holes on the bottom of each shelf fitting nicely over the tops of the bottles below it.

Miss Ginger bolted and stacked each layer the same way, until she reached the height she wanted, which was about 70"! Believe it or not, at this point the unit was really solid, and by sliding the bottom platform away from the wall, she was able to work on the back of the bookshelf.  To give it a more "bookshelfy" look vs. a stack of boards and bottles, she used a length of one-sided corrugated kraft to create a "back" by stapling it to each shelf from behind. Then, for rigidity, she took a length of pine 1x3 and nailed it behind the kraft. You can't see it, but it's behind the kraft on each side, at the very edge, between the paper and the wall.

Here it is, partially styled for this photo.  Trust, honey, this bookshelf is strong enough to hold 100's of books, a collection of CD's, or cases and cases of delicious rosy reds or delightful chardonnays!

Admittedly, I wouldn't put it in the living room or formal dining area, but for a craft room or rec room, it's kind of darling, and certainly affordable!!  

Stay tuned for another affordable work surface that also provides hidden storage!

Craft Room... Part II !!

It's been a while since Miss Ginger has had a craft post on the blog, but it's not because she has been lazy!  On the contrary, she has been slaving away night and day, through 2 weeks of vacation, to get the Craft Room finished and ready for daily use!  You've already seen Phase One,  and since she hasn't had to while away hours this year creating Mardi Gras finery, she's taken advantage of this gorgeous Texas winter to finish Phase II of the Craft Room!  It's lovely being in the workshop this time of year, so she started back in November and has been at it every chance she's had since then!  

She started by laying out the rough pieces in the garage to get the general shape of the project built out....

Once she had the general size and scale laid out, she consulted with Chief Draftskitten Shelby to ensure the plans were accurate, detailed, and on budget.  Miss Shelby is a stickler for coming in on budget!

There were measurements to measure, fittings to fit, and orders to be ordered, and there has been months of chaos and excitement around Chez Ginger as the pieces were assembled!

Now that the paint has dried, Miss Ginger couldn't be happier with the results, and she is thrilled to show you Part II of her magical craft space!  

You may think it's a desk, but you'd only be half right.  By day, 'tis but a trusty desk, with plenty of room for paperwork, a laptop, and a purring kitten curled up on a pillow.  But, by night, this clever desk transforms into an all-inclusive sewing center, with a hydraulic lift for the sewing machine, as well as a pull-out ironing board and a sliding platform for the serger!  Shelby and Ginger designed it, and Boy G and Nog built it, and the whole family could not be happier! 

Miss Ginger plans to spend this weekend canvassing the house for all for all of the crafts supplies and tools that are tucked in every nook and cranny, so they can all be relocated into their new home in the all inclusive craft room!  There's a few more bits and pieces that Miss G pull together for you in the next few posts, but meanwhile, drop her a comment and let her know what crafts you'd like to see on these pages! 

Craft Room!

Miss Ginger has been a busy bee putting together the first phase of her craft room, and here it is!!  Now she's REALLY ready to bang out some crafts for you, but first, she's going to let you in on how you can put together a space like this without a lot of carpentry skills or tools! All you need is a wall!

It all starts with these great rolling tool cabinets that form the base.  Miss Ginger got these at Sam's Club, but you may find them cheaper at your local home center, or at Harbor Freight Tools or Northern Tools. You could also use a couple of old dressers or nightstands, matching or not, as long as they are the same height. (A couple of 2-drawer file cabinets would work, also, although the deep drawers are not as useful!)  Since these were on wheels,  Boy G built little "garages" around the 2 cabinets so they can be pulled out to create additional work surface, but if your carpentry skills are limited, you can set your work surface right down on the cabinets.  You can buy a preformed formica counter of varying lengths at Lowes or Home Depot, or you can even use a door, as long as it is flat. Don't worry about the precut doorknob hole- it's a great way to run a power strip to your work surface.

Another option is to buy wooden butcher block counters from Ikea, or if you're really handy, lay-up your  own surface out of lumber, like Boy G did with these poplar boards.  This requires a little more time and a few more tools, but it's allows you to make a low-cost countertop that is durable and beautiful. 

There's an easy shortcut to the overhead cabinets, as well.  If you don't have the time and talent to build  cabinets like these (paneled doors are not easy!), you can buy prefab unfinished cabinets at Lowes.  They are really easy to hang with a cordless screwdriver and a level.  Screw a ledger board onto the wall to make sure they are nice and level, then rest the bottom of the cabinet on the ledge, swing it into place, and screw it into the studs.  The cabinets are not real heavy, but they are a bit awkward, so you may need a helper.

To add the shelves between the cabinets, use nail on strips that hold shelf brackets.  You can buy pre made shelving at Lowes, or buy plain boards in the lumber area and finish them to match.  

Add some plug-in lights underneath the bottom shelf and countertop height stool, and your craft space is ready for your imagination to run wild!  Best of all: even with the shortcuts, you can build the whole thing for less than $800!!