How To Make a Tree Bookshelf

Wow! It's been quite a while since my last post. I'm going to stray from my usually format and try to give you an actual how to, since I think it's something people might actually want to make.

When deciding on a theme for the nursery, Al and I went back and forth between and under the sea theme and a woodland theme. Not knowing if we are having a boy or a girl, we needed something neutral. Eventually, we decided on the woodland theme. Somewhere along the way, we thought a bookshelf that looked like a tree would be pretty cool. We found two different types online: Graphic Spaces Woodland Happy Tree for $2100 or Shawn Soh's tree bookshelf for $850. Yeah, we can't afford either of those!! Since Al is pretty handy and artistic, he decided he could whip something up for around $250. I love a handy husband! :)

Here's what you need:

12 2" x 6" x 6' planks
Wood glue
Sander
Saw
Paint of your choice
L brackets and hardware

We decided the bookshelf would be more space efficient and look more 3 dimensional if it was in the corner as opposed to just stuck on the wall. The bottom branches would be three feet long, the middle branches two feet, and the top one feet. Keeping that in mind, we took two of the planks and cut them so we had two 3ft pieces, two 2ft pieces, and two 1ft pieces. We drew branches on each of these for our template. For the trunk, we used two 6ft planks and drew our template on those. Al then cut out the templates. Each branch was 4 pieces thick, so Al was going to be spending many days cutting and gluing pieces together. Fortunately, my dad knows a guy with a state of the art woodshop (Thanks Dad and Steve!). He let us drop off our remaining pieces for him to glue and cut out. Not only did this save us a lot of time, but it looked more like one piece as opposed to multiple pieces glued together.

Once all the pieces were cut and returned home, we glued on our original templates and began the painting. As usual, we couldn't decide what the right paint color would be, so we ended up taking the bedding into Home Depot and matched it with a green and red. I don't know what made us do it, but we went with the red. And I must say, that it looks stunning! So glad we went with that over the green. After it was painted and dried, we got assembling. We found some pieces could be assembled to the trunk, while other pieces were better attached to the wall using L brackets. After it was set up, we painted the hardware and started decorating. Thanks to my sis for having guests at the baby shower bring a book in place of a card, we are able to stock the tree full of books. And thanks to my mom and aunt for providing stuffed animals for additional character. We couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out!!

the finished and stocked tree bookshelf

 

Don't you just love it? :)
Happy Bookshelfing!
--Am