Wood movement in shelves - design help wanted

[Matt Day]

All,

Attached are some sketches of a shelf/door unit I'm going to install in a bathroom we're renovating. All wood is solid cherry.

This is my first attempt at something like this, and I'm not sure my design is what sound.

I originally planned on using pocket screws on the bottom of the shelf to anchor the shelves to the side rails, but I'm concerned about wood movement in the shelves. End grain will not be visible from the front, so the wood will move in and out from the face of door.

Could you all give me some design input?

Also, I was planning on putting multiple coats of Waterlox on for the finish, as there will be a lot of moisture in the room as it's a bathroom.

[Prashun Patel]

Can u use cherry plywood for the shelf deck? It'll be more stable than solid wood. A glued dado would be the strongest, but a glued and pocketscrewed joint should work too.

[Brandon Shew]

If this is a bathroom that is used for showering daily, you may be OK as the regular dosing of moisture from the showers should keep the wood at a fairly consistent moisture content. If this is not a daily user, you may lose some flushness between the door and the shelf panel across the front as the shelf panel expands and contracts.
That aside - any reason you're not building a plywood box with a face frame? - Plywood is more dimensionally stable, the boxes would be stronger, easy to build, and could be done cheap and you wouldn't be putting all that nice cherry where you won't see it. I also think that it wouldn't look right to open the door and see the wall inside. Personally, I would treat it like a custom sized cabinet & use a cherry board as the "countertop"

Also - I'm curious about the height chosen for the design. The 4.5' cabinet height looks off to me. I just helped my brother do almost the exact same thing in his bathroom to a similarly otherwise unuseable space and in my experience, I think that you will find that it would look better to stop the lower cabinet at 36" counter height, leave at least an 18" space above before the upper cabinet or upper shelves. Or just build a cabinet all the way up.

[Jeff Bratt]

I can't see a dimension for the depth of the shelves - but I'll guess it's about 2'. Using solid wood, you can't solidly fasten the shelves to the whole length of side rails. The general way of dealing with movement in this situation is to anchor the front of the shelf - where it's visible - and allow the back to float.
You could:
- use screws, with elongated holes in the middle and back to allow for movement.
- dado the shelves into the rails, then glue the front few inches - leaving the back free to slide in the dado.
or
- use plywood for the shelves - which won't have the same movement problems

In addition to the other design suggestions - make sure your doors have room to swing open. Is the existing door trim going to be in the way?

[Matt Day]

Thank you for all the suggestions!

I thought about using plywood, but I don't have or know of a good supplier around here. Maybe I'll call a local cabinet shop and see if I could buy a sheet from them. I'll look into it. But I got a pretty good deal on the cherry I have, so price is not really a concern.

Maybe I'll try and anchor the fronts of the shelves (which are 1'-2 1/2" deep and 16 7/8" wide) with a pocket screw, then elongate the other pocket hole to allow for expansion. Has anyone tried drilling multiple pocket holes next to eachother to make an elongated slot for the screw head?

I suppose another option would be to use a dovetail on the shelves too.

I think you're right about the height of the cabinets. I came up with the height using the golden ration based on the width; 17" x 1.6 = 2'-3". I'll play around with it today and maybe try a 1'8" tall cabinet. And I'll check to make sure the doors can open all the way and clear the door trim!

Thanks again

[Michael McCoy]

I don't remember how far Charlottesville is from Richmond but there are several suppliers in Richmond. You can do a search for Wurth Wood Group and get addresses. On the other hand, I just did a google search for "charllottesville, va hardward" and came up with several listings.

[Karl Brogger]

I think you're trying a bit too hard. Use plywood, and shelf pins and just have the whole shelf float. Unless you're planning on keeping your antique dumbell collection on the shelves pins are plent good, and allow easy adjustability.

Dado-ing the facing on to the shelf is over kill in my opinion. I just glue and nail the facing on, then clamp it to get a gap free joint. With bigger shelves you have to do one at a time and you a stick to spread the load of the clamp, but with shallower shelves I just clamp them up two at a time face to face.