I made an Entire Bookshelf Wall For only $600

It took two days to set everything up. The shelves are only half full and i have around 700 books.

I Have Always Wanted an Entire Wall Dedicated To My Books.

I even contacted a professional on Instagram. He quoted me $13,000 as a base price with the lowest quality materials. I don’t have that kind of money so I looked for alternative options.

I stumbled upon a YouTube video of a couple that made a full built in shelf wall from Billy bookcases that they purchased at IKEA. I measured up my wall and began drawing up a plan. I was genuinely surprised when I discovered how cheap covering the walls from top to bottom would be.

It wasn’t entirely easy though. As you can see in the above GIF, the first three shelves are built as standard. From floor to ceiling. The next five shelves are cutoff and wall mounted. Cutting them all correctly and ensuring they would be able to hold up when full of books was the real challenge.

I was lucky to be able to borrow a table saw from my uncle. This made everything much smoother. I used Youtube and my father to guide me through the building process.

Here is a YouTube video if you are interested in doing the same thing.

I have not completely finished. I am missing details like boards that outline the edges. I was thinking of leaving the top as is to provide extra storage. Some of the videos I found even fill the holes for shelves to avoid looking “cheap.” I find that once I fill the shelves with books the little holes become invisible anyway.

The final result. As of now is pictured below. i added some small plants. I am still missing one shelf which I think i will have to order as a spare part from Ikea. The shelves are a little tight for anything taller than a standard 20cm paperback.

Let me know how you tackled building shelves,

Happy reading,

Nikolai Shukhov