Barrister Style Bookcase Version 1
Poplar Barrister BookcasePoplar Barrister BookcasePoplar Barrister BookcasePoplar Barrister BookcaseAfter consolidating our home offices, I wanted to have a cabinet I could keep personal treasures in. I wanted to not only display items and woodworking projects, I also did not want to have to dust them. Since we have a rabbit, fur tends to get on everything, and living out in the country does not help either. I considered a couple of different designs like swing out doors, and sliding glass doors, but ultimately decided on a barrister-style hinged door. The base for the project was a standard multi-position, heavy duty shelf system bolted right to the wall studs. I decided to build off of one of the 48in x 12in shelves. The material for the build was 3/4in aspen planks and 1/4in clear birch plywood. Aspen provides a nice clean face, cleaner then most pine on the market, it's cheaply priced, but requires a heck of a lot of post cleanup. It's not only a soft wood, but also very "wooly". Most of the joinery is routed tongue and groove, and the front door is fitted with some salvaged plexiglass temporarily (until I get single pane glass cut at the local hardware store). The pictures listed are obviously raw/unfinished wood. I am going to try to stain to match the laminated base which is American Cherry. The mechanism is pretty simple and only takes a little care when drilling the holes for the dowels which slide in the track. Further enhancements will include a drilled hole in the back corner to feed LED lights into it. The door handles were a set of brushed aluminum drawer pulls I salvaged from an old shelf.