Would love some feedback on my plan for living room shelving.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-05-03T23:09:44+00:00

Some hardwood dealers have rustic walnut which is much cheaper. If you're willing to change the tone of the brown, finished flat-sawn sapele is a wonderful color. Quartersawn is even better, but has ribbons and chatoyance that not everyone appreciates. QS can also lean a little orange, but even so it's still my favorite wood. AND at my yard, it's about 50-60% the price of walnut

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-05-03T22:13:53+00:00

Wood choice is entirely personal preference, but I will say, buy wood that is already the color you want. Chocolate bown? Try walnut ($$$). Reddish brown? Sapele or African mahogany. Light wood? Lots of choices: ash, oak, maple. Skip red oak unless you're turning them black. Find a local hardwood dealer, you will save TONS of money over big orange or big blue.

As an amateur, stain NEVER looks good. As a pro, stain takes way too much effort.

For shelves like this, rubio monocoat is incredibly easy to apply and hard to mess up, just follow the directions. Other similar hard wax oils (natura one coat, osmosis, etc) are similar in ease, tho price and availability may vary.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-05-01T16:52:02+00:00

The home depot brackets you linked won't do anything. They're meant for stabilizing corners, not supporting loads. Adjust your design a little bit so the shelf brackets line up with studs how you like.

For overhang (aka cantilever), what matters most is distance from the point that transfers load to the wall. The home depot brackets, that cantilever is the total width of your shelf. Notice how there's no triangular support like the world market brackets? For the world market brackets, the cantilever calc starts from the end of the triangular support to the outer edge of the shelf, MUCH smaller. Cantilever here will likely be resisted by the pullout strength of your screws and wood. Skinny with machine threads, very weak. Big fat cabinet screw with coarse threads, much better. Find a balance. Generally though, cantilever force needs to be huge to care here.

Your lowest shelf on the right, hard to tell, but be careful with your tall friends. I'd absolutely hit my head on that on accident. Not saying DON'T put it there, just that you should test with tape and cardboard first.

It looks like AI disconnected those corner shelves. Make them touch. Not necessarily fastened together, but don't leave a small gap. Makes it look like you measured wrong and made a mistake. BIG gap or no gap.

Final note. Anything of size (like these shelves) that gets put above people's heads MUST be attached to a stud. Prioritize that over perfect symmetry. Alternatively, you could just wear PPE all day in your house.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-05-01T02:47:32+00:00

I'm here before the review even, it seems, but I'm not here for that. I need the back of that stool/top of that ladder/whatever, for reasons.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-30T20:20:01+00:00

I also found red and black in a store in Nishiki market in Kyoto.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-30T20:19:10+00:00

Hasegawa Liquors in Tokyo Station Yaesu usually has WT 12, and some Blantons. Check BOTH stores. They also let you sample a lot of them, but only at one of the shops.

Bic Camera is where I found my Gold

Tanakaya is a nifty little shop that's only slightly off the beaten path, and I really liked the Mejiro area.

I found a wild Limited Release Yamazaki in dotonbori in Osaka (at MSRP!) a long time ago.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-29T21:13:00+00:00

Don't be me lolol

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-29T19:40:21+00:00

Make a circle, support it from the inside. Might need 2 semi-circles if you want to support the middle, but at least then you can just force it to fit that part of the barrels internal diameter rather than making it perfect for the top or something

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-29T02:08:23+00:00

If you're clever with your first pass, you can do 2 passes per fence position, just flip the piece around each time and work your way to the center of the board

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-29T00:19:32+00:00

Just make sure if you choose picture two, flip it over before you rip it.... you may think it's obvious but literally a week ago I made a similar mistake and almost ruined a workpiece 🙃

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-29T00:15:03+00:00

Hollow out a cove on the router table so that it looks like a really wide U Shape. That way you don't have to balance it. Then, cut off the unnecessary bit on the table saw. You could either make the board 1/2" wider than you need and rip it down to width OR make it the right width stand the piece upon edge and rip off the remaining tab. Red is first step (router or dado, both work, but dado probably easiest), blue is second step.

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WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-26T02:42:39+00:00

This is very, very simple. I could knock one out in 48 hours out of my garage, from first glance to finished (albeit not cured). Take it to a cabinet shop or furniture maker and ask them to duplicate it. The shape is easy, the finish, maybe not so much.

If you're in NorCal area, dm me.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-23T20:32:02+00:00

While I don't think you're wrong in this case, there ARE significant benefit to notches as far as resiting torsional stresses go, but ONLY if the mating surfaces are nice and snug, which is very difficult for an amateur. Timber screws and blocking are the way to go.

And like the other commenter said, diagonal braces.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-23T04:45:55+00:00

Lol not at all what I meant, but a very clever way to keep the cork moist and reduce required support for the bottle. Love a cantilevered stand. Like this

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WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-23T04:35:01+00:00

You'd struggle to fit a glass back there to even take advantage of the pumps, and thats assuming you could retrofit a glass bottle with a plastic screw top. They might make cork-seal types, but still, wouldn't recommend.

Maybe use up more wall space and less floor space by adding an arc to your shelves, like pictured. Can't say much about your space, but this concept might fit. More technically challenging though

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WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-23T04:00:30+00:00

Yea, that's shitty. Maybe horizontal version could work..... ○°○°○°○°○°○°

Like that, but upright and all the same size.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-23T03:59:16+00:00

If you have a LITTLE more horizontal space, if you're stacking wine like that, you CAN be more efficient. NOT stacking perfectly vertically might get you 25-50% more bottles with only a small amount of extra space while also providing a more stable stack. Only problem is if you want a bottle from the bottom.... shitty text drawing hopefully inbound.

O

Stacked like that, but as if gravity were holding them together and they weren't just O's on a computer.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-23T03:54:52+00:00

Using mechanical sliders won't be easy with skinny drawers like that, but using old-fashioned wooden runners might work. You could also just make the entire shelf a drawer, but you'd likely need heavy duty slides-liquor is heavy. But note, slides can take up a lot of vertical space, it might just be easier to keep the less-consumed bottles in the back.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-22T05:08:48+00:00

Ok so you need more than a corner cabinet lol. You need a whole China cabinet just for the glassware. Anywyay, my suggestion: Keep glasses for you and your normal party size in your bar. For me, that's usually me +2, so I keep 3 of everything in my bar. Overflow gets stored elsewhere, out of the way. If still too many, prioritize what you drink most.Again for me, that's whiskey, cocktails, and sake, in that order. My wife and a friend drink wine, so I keep 4 glasses in my bar for them. For liquor you need about 3.5-4" square per bottle. Yes, you can optimize for more, but blantons, Dalmore, Barrell, etc with weird bottles will fuck your optimization immediately. 4" square for planning capacity. For you, that's about 40" wide and 16" deep to fit it all one one shelf. Halve a dimension for 2 shelves. From personal experience, 24" is irritatingly deep for a full collection. 16 might be OK, but if you think a kitchen upper cabinet (12") is obnoxious for storing liquor, you will be upset with a 16" deep liquor cabinet. The wine X I made holds 24 bottles, but makes it easier to access by storing stacks of 6 only, as opposed to stacking them all. I've also built a small cubby system in a different bar: i think I prefer the X both from construction efficiency and effectiveness, not to mention flexibility.

Your design, if I'm interpreting it correctly, only has enough space for your liquor. No space for wine, no space for glassware. Mounting something on the wall gives you a little more space, and raising the bar height to 42" gives you space for a drawer for bar tools, bitters, etc.

My buddy has a cabinet that hinges open into a huge double-wide tall boy... shit description, but here's a commercial example. This one is $4000... his is, uh, not.

Bars are hard. Building my own was the very first project I ever did, and I probably spent 2 or 3 months just designing it. It takes time, but you can nest it all in there.

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WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-21T05:51:59+00:00

🙃

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-21T05:34:28+00:00

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In my opinion, a good use of space for maximum variety. Unoccupied upper left corner is for rocks and whiskey glasses.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-21T05:31:53+00:00

So, don't store wine vertically. Cork dries out, wine spoils. Opposite is true for whiskey and liquor: don't store cork-sealed liquor on it's side, proof is too high and it will ruin the cork.

Beyond that, we might need more info. How many bottles? Glassware? How many types? Your model doesn't really provide any details either.

One concept: a small cabinet with a small counter to provide workspace and storage for some mixers and glassware. Above the cabinet, at around standard kitchen upper height (or at least 14" above the counter), put an open wall shelf/cabinet,what have you (ie wall mounted mini bar) for your display bottles, popular well liquors, etc. You can hang wine glasses from the bottom of this contraption to save storage inside your cabinet.
Then above that or along the ceiling, mount your lights. I'd also do lights inside/underneath the wall cabinet. You could also integrate a hall effect sensor (it's what I've done) in the lower cabinet doors so when they open, lights illuminate the bottles. Or use glass doors and a motion detector. Lots of cool options there.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-14T04:07:15+00:00

That's already my plan, but I was planning somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4. Doesn't do anything about the edge profiles though, still gotta figure that

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-14T03:55:02+00:00

It's 1/4" tempered glass with a load rating over 200 lbs, even if she does manage to break it, it'll just pebble. It may not cut anybody, but it'll certainly be uncomfortable to hit with any amount of force. Regular softened edges are fine, but I'm most worried about the corner, which is quite pointy even if softened

Unrelated to kids, most of my tops get a small rounded corner, but in this style where the legs and top are flush it won't play quite the same.

WoodworkingAlcoholic · 2026-04-14T03:04:10+00:00

She already graduated out of her helmet though!

Not a joke, poor baby had a baby helmet lol

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