Sliding Bookcase

This was a fun project I did for one of my long time customers…....He had a built-in bookcase in his “home” office that was built into a cavity under the stairway on the other side. He wanted to put a large safe in that cavity behind the bookcase and needed a way to get to the safe. He did not want the bookcase to swing out into the room, since his desk sits directly in front of the bookcase and he did not want to have to relocate his desk or have to move it to swing a bookcase out. We had plenty of depth to put the safe behind the bookcase, but was very restricted on width and height. If you look closely at the second picture, you will see that the left half of the bookcase slides back into the cavity and in the third picture you see the right half of the bookcase slides to the left in front of the left half allowing access to the cavity where the safe will sit. It was a fun challenge to design a slide system the would cross each other and carry the weight of the bookcases. The last picture shows the hole I had to work with when I tore the original bookcase out. I very carefully removed the molding and tore the original bookcase out, replaced the molding and my bookcase was designed to sit behind the molding to give the original built-in look. Easier said then done!!!!! The original bookcase was built-in when the house was built, which meant the sheetrock was screwed to the front of the sides, top and bottom of the bookcase. As you can see, the walls are painted a dark wine and I did not want to disturb the sheetrock, so I very carefully took a hack saw blade and slide it between the back of the sheet rock and the face of the bookcase and cut each screw off behind the sheet rock. No marks, no cracks, and no holes! The only touch up I had to do was with the white molding where I had to nail it back in place and recaulked. Oh! Did I mention? My customer lives almost 200 miles from my shop. It turned out great and he loves it. I hope to get some pictures with the safe in place the next time I’m up there….....A few books, pictures and nick-nacks and you will never know the bookcase moves.

-- John @ http://www.thehuffordfurnituregroup.com