One of the first projects I worked on after buying my house back in 2021 was to build a little library. I had a bunch of leftover plywood from when I had previously created a new top for my desk just lying around with no use for. And Kyle and I had gotten a penchant for driving around Oklahoma City on Thursdays trying to find little libraries to look at.
Up to this point in my history of hobbies, the only things I’d made were the aforementioned desktop, and a half-finished model train diorama. Both of which I had built in my apartment’s rented garage space. But this presented me with the issue that I didn’t really have a bunch of tools for the project.
The most terrifying part was probably flipping my circular saw upside down and using it as a poor-mans table saw to create the slots for the window in the door. But it all came together and I was extremely happy with how it turned out.
Weathering the Elements
Over the 4 years of its time in service I learned quite a few important lessons on its construction.
- Seal the edges
- When I first built it, I didn’t use wood glue and relied on overlapping edges to try and limit water intrusion. When I should have glued it together. I didn’t because I intended for it to be dis-assemblable and serviced, but in reality this type of servicing was very uncommon.
- Use low-profile lights
- The winds in Oklahoma are quite powerful, and the lights I used ended up not holding up very well. The sun baked the plastic causing it to fail, and the pounding of the rain did them in.
- Try not use Plywood
- The original version was built using plywood. Which I painted but didn’t end up doing much else to seal it. Granted this was fairly nice Baltic Birch plywood. But still over time the edges have swelled.
- Protect the Roof
- The roof took the burnt of damage from the elements and has been the only piece that I did a mid-life-cycle replacement on. When it bowed away from the ledge and was allowing for water-intrusion along the top.
- UV is no Joke
- Another MAJOR issue I had is with the books getting sun-bleached. The library faces south, towards the sun, and with only a plexiglass door, the books would get bleached to white over time. This would make them less appealing over time.
The New Library
Since I intend to move and sell the house. I decided to take some time and rebuild the library, since after 4 years it wasn’t in the best condition anymore. I also wanted to build something that would last a lot longer than my previous version, with the hopes that it serves the community for many years after I’m gone.
While the previous little library was a major project that took weeks to finish. This was quite firmly a weekend project. Thanks to my evolved woodworking skills and access to a larger menagerie of tools.
I built it out of solid wood sections that are intended for furniture use. I wood glued all the seams and used a nail gun to hold it together. And I finished it off with the same paint, followed by a clear-coat of polyurethane on top.
Some Minor Issues Arise
It’s been a couple of months since I put the new Little Library up, and have had to do a couple emergency repairs to the new one. First and foremost is that I had to replace the roof. The solid wood board that I had started to crack along the seams of the wood, due to the spring variations of moisture and heat. The same also happened to a much less problematic extend along one of the sides. But while I just sealed the side with clear silicone, I fully replaced the roof. This time around I went back to using the VERY LAST of my extra Baltic Birch from the original project. I took an extra effort to seal it with a thick coat of Lacquer.
This does have me thinking about whither solid would was the right choice after all. Plywood does have the advantage of being more dimensionally stable, even if it has issues long-term with water intrusion and it eventually de-laminating.
Either way, I’m happy that the books seem to be far more protected than they were before.
