Happiness is a Busy Bookshelf

A man's bookshelf will tell you everything you'll ever need to know about him.

                                                                                                               - Walter Mosley

I could not agree more with that quote. If people don't know what to get me, you can't go wrong with a good book. I believe you can never have enough books. I spent this past week working on this crate bookshelf. I have wanted to build this for some time now. This shelf is 9 crates and I bought them at Walmart. There are other stores that also sell crates too.

Things you need for this project:

• 9 crates or however many you want for your bookshelf. I bought the biggest size they have. I can't remember on the top of my head the measurements (so sorry) 
• Minwax Stain. I got the Jacobean color. It looked different on the can; however, you just never know how it will turn out once put on different woods. I like how ours turned out. 
• Minwax finishing was. This helps protect the stain and wood after you are finished. 
• About one inch screws. We bought the brown dull looking ones to blend in with the bookshelf. 
• Corner Brackets. This is used to anchor it to the wall. I highly suggest anchoring it.
• A bunch of old rags for staining.
• Sander and sand paper 

I believe that is all I needed for this project. I started out staining a couple crates a day during Johnathan's nap. I did not do much sanding and you could just do it by hand, but I smoothed down some of the edges on the shelf. Use the rags to wipe the stain off when applied to give it that rustic look. After about 8 hours to dry, apply the finishing wax and then wipe down after about 10 min.

You may need to shift the crates around until you get an pretty even looking bookshelf. Once you have it how you want it, start putting screws in using a drill is easiest. We put about 4 screws for each section. Then we finished off anchoring it to the wall. We used the corner/L bracket to make this happen. Since we were wanting out bookshelf at an angle, we had to bend the bracket a bit and make it fit. You won't have to do that a whole lot if you are just putting it flat against the wall. I love how it turned out.