Vertical Spine Shelves for Small Spaces

by Todd Walker

Do you live in cramped quarters?

There’s only x amount of horizontal surface in a house. Tables, counters, and shelving fill up quickly.

DRG’s solution – go vertical.

All these books once occupied the shelf pictured next to the vertical spine book shelf. DRG is happy.

I completed this simple honey-do yesterday and thought I’d share it with y’all.

I’ve only ever seen dimensional lumber used for the spine. Being unconventional and cheap, I opted to re-purpose a dead cedar tree.

The cedar log on the left became my spine

If you use a tree, make sure it’s not green. It needs to cure so the sap won’t make a mess out of your build. I purchased a 1×8 cedar board from a box store for the shelves. It cost around $8.

I trimmed the limbs off the cedar log and cut the end off as flush as possible. I had to tweak the angle to make the log stand vertical. Then I mounted the log with 3 inch screws to my base (made from the cedar board).

Now for the challenge of attaching the shelving boards to the log. I used a 5/8 inch router bit to cut the notches for the boards. The boards were 13/16 thick. After one pass with the router through the log, I carefully skimmed the cut to make the notch the need width.

I cut my shelves 9 inches and used a rubber mallet to tap them in place in the notches. I pre-drilled two holes through the log and into the boards. I attached them with two 3 inch screws. They weren’t perfectly level, but that’s what I get for using a log for the spine.

This project isn’t for super heavy items. But it allowed us to stack books on it that use to occupy valuable shelving.

Any thoughts, improvements or comments on making it better?

Doing the stuff,

Todd