Barrister Style Bookcase Part 1

My wife has been asking me to build her a bookshelf for some time. Her book collection hit a critical mass so I decided it was time to build her a bookcase. As I am still early in my path into woodworking and on a budget I decided to use plain sawn white oak and oak plywood. Looking back I wish I had sprung for the quarter sawn white oak, next time I'll just wait until I get the wood for the project.

Another mistake I made was failing to take process pictures so I'll see what I can show from the finished product. I'll start off with the big picture and zoom in. the project was a barrister style book shelf with two shelves. The finished product is 4 feet wide and about 2 1/2 feet tall. The doors, sides and back are frame and panel construction. I roughly based the project off a bookshelf I saw in the January 2010 issue of Wood Magazine (awesome magazine by the way). I used 1/4" thick acrylic in the doors to increase durability so I hopefully won't need to replace it in the future.



I thought it would hold all her books...maybe I should come back to reality. This doesn't even show the piles of books in the other room.



That's it for part 1, part 2 will be the details.