Our towering bookshelves

One of the more challenging storage issues Isaac and I have is how to store our 1,000 book collection. Originally, we had 6 inexpensive ($20/each) ikea shelves. These were lovingly assembled at the foot of our bed so that we may bask in the glory of our favorite collection. The books overwhelmed the small shelves, making the space somewhat insufficient. Not only that, but the rickety shelves looked lopsided and haphazardly thrown together - partially because of the shelves themselves and partly because of our sloped floor (as we later found out).

Being an Ikea addict, I began thinking of ways to toss the shelves. I wanted to build up, to better utilize our tall ceilings for storage. First I stumbled upon this hack. Here, the owners used some inexpensive shelves stacked upon one another to create a custom, built-in look. I liked the idea of smaller shelves atop larger ones. But crunching the numbers, even this relatively inexpensive hack would cost around $600. Ouch.

So I kept looking into other ideas. Then I stumbled upon another solution. Here, the owner reinforced their cheap shelves by connecting them to one another using hardware. It eliminated the unsightly spacing between each shelf - which was a problem with our current shelves our uneven floors. Lightening struck. By reinforcing and reusing the shelves we already had, we could have our dream floor to ceiling shelves for less than $200. And so the plan was laid out, sketches drawn, and off to Ikea we went.

After a frustrating hour in the parking garage trying to figure out how to fit boxes of shelving into a compact car (*always* a problem when we do a big Ikea shop) we got the necessary items home: 2 2x4 Expedits, and one 2x2 Expedit, all in birch to match the current shelving. 

I was surprised how quickly the Expedits came together - we had all three built in less than an hour. Isaac working away:

Coming together:

After assembling and placing the Expedits, we set about securing the shelves we already had to one another. We punched out the cheap plastic backing on the back, preferring to go with open-back shelving to match the Expedits. We stacked the shelves atop of the sturdy Expedits, and secured them to the wall. Voila!

Before (notice the awful spacing between shelves):

 

And after:

Its a nice view to wake up to, eh? We added about 30 sq ft of book shelving, increasing the height from 6ft to about 10ft. Its definitely a more cohesive, pulled together look. More pictures to come after we finish the tedious re-shelving of our book collection.