Bookcase with picture panel sides

I wanted to do a bookcase with more visual appeal than usual, but without adding frivolous scroll work or medallions or do-dads. I like raised panels sides in furniture to draw the eye, but I also like the idea of a thing reflecting or hinting at what it contains. At first, I was going to have prints of the covers of classic first edition books in all the panels, but, as it turns out, classic first editions generally have very boring covers.

You can't go wrong with pulp magazine covers though. They all have bright colors and vibrant illustration. You can stare at the sides of this bookcase and get sucked into the stories without even taking a book out.

All of these images are from large scans that I printed on heat transfers and ironed directly on the plywood inner walls of the case. This bookcase is really overbuilt, having both an inner cabinet carcass and an outer face frame. I always tend to use more material than is actually necessary. I like things that can take a lot of abuse, and it's mass that survives the ravages of time, not engineering.



This bookcase has fixed shelves in it, but the next one will be adjustable. I need the proper jig to drill the holes for the shelf clips. If they aren't even on both sides, the shelves will slant.

Most of the material in this, I bought new. The idea of what I wanted just didn't fit with any of the wood I had on hand. The baseboard is a salvaged 2x6 though.

The paint is two coats of black satin over a flat white base coat. Then it got two coats of satin polyurethane.


Here is a close up on one of the panels. The moisture content of the wood has to be considered when you use heat transfers. Old dry wood will take it flat and evenly, but, if there is more water present in the wood, it will steam up and change the texture of the print. This isn't necessarily a bad thing , partial melting and cooling of the transfer gives it a look like heavily brushed oil paint. That looks better with subject matter like Treasure Island than Science Fiction Quarterly.

I really like how this experiment came out, and I plan to use the same technique in other pieces. The only limit I'm running into is the size of the image I can print at home. I think I'll be happy to play around with what I can do for a while before I start looking for a larger printer though.