Building a shelf for my living room

Hello,

Beginner here. With writing this, I'm increasingly thinking I should hire a carpenter, lol. But I've been wanting to post this for months, so here it goes.

What do I want to build?

I want to build a desk/TV sideboard/shelf combo, that takes up the entire length of a 5-meter-long wall in my living room (see image).

There's the 'lower part': 60cm deep, 75cm high; two desks on either extremities (i.e. in the corners of the room), flanked by drawers and storage options for all matter of things. The centrepiece is the TV-sideboard, with cupboards for storage and an open solution for A/V devices.
Then there's the 'upper part': 40cm deep, 200cm high; this is like a shelf that sits on top of the 'lower part', but it is narrower by 20cm. This will be storage for books, records, work stuff, etc... I am not planning on having a back wall on the shelf.

What are the circumstances?

I live in a relatively small apartment (~ 40m²) with my partner. The apartment is a pre-WW1 house, with a room height of 3,2m. The 5m wall is brick, and behind it starts the next house, so it's plenty thick. The living room itself is about 19m².

My questions to the community

My main question is basically how?

Is it smarter to build the 'lower part' all in one first, then build the 'upper part' on top? Or is it better to build everything around the two L-shaped studs, that separate the desks from the TV? I imagine that the first option is easier to build, whereas the second option provides more stability.
What tools, screws, wall plugs and techniques would you use to build this? More specifically: how do I anchor things to the wall?
The material should be wood – but which one would be appropriate?
I have a couple of other questions, but I'll leave it at that for now...

Thank you so much for replying and taking an interest.

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16 comments

I'm not a carpenter, I'm a handyperson, so I'm not used to trying to make things pretty. But I do put a lot of shit on walls.

If I were trying to do this, I would not do it all in one piece. (NOT trying to discourage, your plan is just beyond my abilities.) I would be making the three spanning shelves by mounting furring strips or small lumber (don't know your country's dimensional lumber standards) to the walls horizontally across the studs and on the side with construction lags, and setting the long shelf on that and bolting it down to the frame. Or just using shelf brackets along their length.

Ok, ok ok ok after reading your questions and the actual problem statement you're gonna be in for a bit of fun. You said the wall is brick, is it bare brick, brick with plaster over, or a plaster and lath wall inside with a brick exterior?

Regardless, (again as a handyman not a carpenter or cabinet maker) I would probably just mount the shelves to the wall individually instead of trying to make one cohesive furniture piece. For brick, that's going to be sleeve anchors (around half the depth of a brick) and a hammer drill with appropriately sized masonry bit into the wall. With brackets or the bolted down rear runner you could do the whole thing without those two middle verticals.

Your shelves can be softwood, it's sturdy enough if it's sitting on brackets every 75-100 cm. Probably farther with hardwoods. If you're going to paint it definitely don't bother with hardwood. If you want pretty stained wood, find a hardwood that looks good and a stain that looks good and a sealant and throw them together and see what happens.

As for the desks, drawers, and cupboards, cabinetry is basically wizardry as far as I'm concerned. That's woodshop stuff. I'd personally be making the desks as dead simple tables and trying to find premade files or drawers or whatever.

Tools (assuming you try to go cheap and sturdy with plywood):

Tool	Danger	Purpose
Table Saw	actively trying to kill you	break down the sheets
Compound Miter Saw	will kill you if you let it	cut planks to length
Drill press or joinery jig	ready to mangle long sleeves, gloves, or hair	needed to put holes in exactly the right place in the lumber
hammer drill / rotary hammer	friend	for holes in brick for anchors, wear goggles and a mask brick dust is insanely fine also it will destroy your vacuum if it's not a bagged HEPA shop vac
impact driver	friend	makes anchor driving effortless, not ideal for brick but great for wood to wood
ratchet wrench	friend	needed to snug down the brick anchors

Also gonna need basic hand tools, probably some chisels for cleanup, sandpaper, wood glue

Note: my danger ratings are very generous; I have very little regard for my personal safety and have had to be reminded to put clothes on while actively using an angle grinder. Everything will kill you if given the opportunity, wear safety gear. Gloves and sleeves are not safety gear for some of these tools, they are loose bits that the tool will happily snag to munch your flesh.

"beyond my abilities" sounds discouraging and self-disparaging, I should have said "outside my comfort zone"

16 comments