Before I ended up spending half of last weekend “hiking” in the Black Hills, my original plan had been to finish a long-standing woodworking project to get all of my baseball card albums onto shelves. Fortunately, I managed to find enough time on Sunday afternoon to get it done anyway. Now I’m not a particularly great woodworker, nor do I have a whole lot of tools (yet) so this was always going to be more functional than aesthetically pleasing. Especially given the issues I’ve had with other shelving systems over the years.
Basically, when I’ve tried to shelve my cards in the past, I’ve run into one of two problems: cheap bookshelves aren’t built to take the weight, and end up sagging. Expensive bookcases with thick shelves can handle the weight, but are, well, expensive. Plus with either solution, there’s usually some wasted space because the shelves aren’t the perfect height. Also, I’ve found that over time, having albums sit upright leads to the pages sagging down inside the binder, which can damage the cards. Granted, most of my collection isn’t worth all that much, but it’s the principle of the thing, doncha know!
So with that, I resolved to build my own solution, with the empty space between a built-in bookshelf and the wall becoming the perfect spot. After measuring my card albums, I found that I could fit four lenthwise across the space I had available, and that a 2×4 stood skinny side up was just taller than the spine of each album. After that it was simply a matter of getting a bunch of solid 12″x1/2″x6′ boards, cutting them to size, and screwing them into the 2×4 supports.
All things considered, I’m happy with the final product. It’s durable, easily expandable, and manages to at least look not awful. At some point I may add a couple of backing pieces to really hold everything together, but with the bottom supported on three 4x4s, it isn’t particularly wobbly. I wouldn’t trust it in an earthquake, but that’s not really a South Dakota problem.
And with that out of the way, I should probably tackle something else on the Infinite Honey-Do List!