Economical Book Shelves?

Question

I have about 350-400 books of various types and sizes. Currently they are stored in boxes in my closet. This is not really conducive to finding anything or to their life span. What would be the least expensive way to store them? I have considered buying shelves but I can't afford to purchase them right now. I'm very open to economical ways to build a sturdy stable shelving unit or to put up wall shelves- so long as they're adjustable and reasonably removable. (I rent)


I did have bookshelves but they were taken in a foreclosure.

Answer 1

If you are a scrounger-- try this.
Bricks stacked-- three or so per stack for a "normal" sized book like a paperbook.
Plain wood ( dis-assembled pallets will work, but I would remove the nails). I would also rough sand the splinters off.

Rack'em and stack'em.
I did this for years-- for hundreds of books. Went so far as to buy 1 x 12 X 10 boards and sawed them to shorter lengths as I moved around. A colored stain with polyurethane-- using the wipe on wipe off technique ( vinyl gloves, two rags-- dampen one with poly stain, wipe on- other clean rag wipe off OR brush on, wipe off)-- then letting them throughly dry works very well for a finish.
Remember books can be very, very heavy so put the largest where you can put extra stacks of bricks.
good luck

Answer 2

If there's an IKEA nearby, you should drop by. They have some white books helves on sale for about 40.00. I'm not sure if they are book shelves exactly, but they are shelves none the less, and they could hold about 200 books.

Answer 3

ikea has plain wooden shelves for about $30. http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?topcategoryId=15561&catalogId=10103&storeId=12&productId=76589&langId=-1&categoryId=15651&chosenPartNumber=90057600

and you can buy them online which you can't do with a lot of ikea stuff. there are other options as well. not sure you can build shelves for this cheap!

Answer 4

here's a link to some ideas on ebay.