High times for Billy

Materials: BILLY x 10

Description: I wanted to construct a floor to ceiling bookshelf with some nifty details and considered building it from MDF boards. Being am a fan of the most efficient way of doing things and also load painting details I choose to make it from 10 BILLY units, 8 wide and 2 narrow. Although this meant carrying 400kg around it was much quicker, easier and cheaper than using board material.

As I wanted to get a clean frame and avoid the "double" sides you normally get from putting two bookcases together I needed to;

1. Drill all the holes for the wooden plugs few mm deeper in the shelves so that they penetrate the vertical parts slightly less and a plug from each side will fit.

2. Drill clean through the vertical parts of the shelf to get holes on both sides

3. Using a circular saw remove the back of each vertical section to allow the back to fit on both sides of each section.

4. Start by building section 2 and 4 as the easiest way of fitting the shelves on these was by screwing them in place together with the wooden plugs.

5. Complete with section 1, 3, 5 adding some support behind the backs of each section to keep it sturdy and provide support for the half shelves and the cut-out made for the TV.

6. Billy section 6 through 10, the upper level, was constructed similarly but each vertical section was cut at the bottom leaving a "seamless" impression between the two sections.

7. To get the upper and lower sections to fit together I made a drilling template and fitted three wooden plugs in each section.

8. Getting the upper level in place took a small building scaffolding that I rented for the two weeks it took to complete the build (with two 6 month twin boys things take longer than expected).

9. Since the wall is intruding on the last section some creative carpeting fixed the angle against the wall.

10. All backs were fitted and four outlets connected to a variable breaker for lighting was installed together with speaker wires, few HDMI cables and power outlets for whatever current and future needs will be.

During the whole process the shelf was standing 2 meters into the room to reach both sides during the build. After VERY carefully pushing it back to the wall it was fixed solid to the wall using 10 cm plugs.
Once in place we scrambled books and stuff to get the look I was after. Very happy with the result and the setup.

~ Adam Lev�n, Gothenburg, Sweden