Bookshelf design ideas

If you just bought a computer or a piece of furniture, you may find yourself suddenly in the possession of a lot of sturdy cardboard. You could easily put it at the roadside for recycling. Or you could transform it into a unique-looking case for your books or DVDs. (I use mine for both.) Cardboard has a lot of virtues. For one, if you live in an apartment, you can't just go out to the garage and make wooden shelves. You can't start cutting wood in your apartment either or you will annoy the neighbours. Cardboard is very easy to work with and, as you'll soon see, capable of becoming quite sturdy. It's also a very light material, environment-friendly, and FREE.
Materials

Lots o' cardboard - sturdy cardboard
Scissors/a knife/a boxcutter - you could in theory make this whole case using scissors, but you'll need strong hands. I used scissors and a bread knife myself.
Measuring tape/a ruler
A pencil
This hub!
Cutting the Pieces

For the design I came up with, there are only three basic kinds of pieces.

1. The shelves:
These are the longest pieces. The length is really up to you and may be dependent on the length of your cardboard box. I cut mine to 21.5 inches in length, 2.5 inches in length. So they're essentially strips.
Because you just can't support books on the flat of cardboard (it'll fold), we're going to turn the cardboard slices lengthwise. So to make a substitute surface out of lengthwise cardboard, we'll need at least four on each level. Since we're only doing three levels (top and bottom included), we'll only need twelve of these strips.

2. The dividers:
These are the second-longest pieces. They keep the shelves apart. You don't want these to be too long, because the longer they are the more prone their middle will be to folding. I recommend 15 inches in length and 3 inches in width.
Since we'll be using four dividers on each side per level, we'll need sixteen.

3. The joiners:
Joiners are the most integral part of the case. The shelves and the dividers will all connect into the joiners. Because our shelves have to be on edge, they have to be slotted into something to hold them up. This is what the joiners do. They also slot the dividers, which are also on edge, width-wise.
There are two type of joiners. Those at the top and bottom are to be 10 inches in length and 2.5 inches in width. Those in the middle, however, must be 10 inches in length and 5 inches in width.
We'll need eight of the 2.5 inch variety, and four of the 5 inch variety.

Slots

The great thing about cardboard is you don't have to use adhesive or nails. Slots is all you need to join the pieces together. The width of all slots should be about 1/10 or 1/5 of an inch if we're to have them fit snugly.

1. Shelf slots. On both ends of the shelves cut two slots, the first one inch in and the second two inches in. They slots are to be exactly half the length as the width of the shelf. So half of 2.5 is 1.25 inches.

2. Divider slots. On both ends of the dividers cut two slots. Since the ends of the dividers are 3 inches, it's simply a matter of cutting a slot one inch in from each side. The length of the slot is to be the same as the shelf slots: 1.25 inches.

3. Joiner slots. This is the tricky one, because the top, middle, and bottom joiners are all different. Draw a ten inch line down the middle of the joiner. If you recall, the joiner is 2.5 inches in width, so each side is 1.25 inches. For the top 2.5 inch joiners, cut a slot at every inch, so you have nine slots in total, all on one side. For the bottom 2.5 inch joiners, cut a slot at the first, second, fourth, sixth, and eight inch marks on one side, the third, fifth, seventh, and ninth inch marks on the other side. For the 5 inch joiners, on one side you'll cut, from left to right, at the third, fifth, seventh, and ninth marks. On the other side, you'll cut, from left to right, at the first, second, fourth, sixth, and eighth marksI