WE BUILT A BOOKCASE
It started with a sketch.
My son Zeke caught me watching a YouTube vide of a guy building a small bookcase, and somewhere between the measuring and the screwing and the finished product going up on the wall, something clicked for him. He wanted to build one too. Not buy one — build one.
So we sat down together, grabbed a piece of graph paper, and figured out what we actually needed. He pulled his favorite book off the shelf — Dog Man, obviously — and we measured it. 6 inches wide. 8.5 inches tall. We built the whole design around that. Two shelves, each tall enough for the books with a little room to grab them. Wide enough to hold a good collection. Deep enough that nothing falls off the back.
He drew the initial sketch himself and Then we refined it together. Finally I dumped those sketches and a simple prompt into Claude to get a final design.
The Plan
We kept it as simple as possible. One 6-foot 1×8 pine board. A piece of hardboard for the back. Wood glue, screws, sandpaper. A basic drill we already owned.
We had Home Depot make all the cuts — a trick that meant the only tool we needed at home was the Ryobi drill. Five pieces of wood came home in the car. That was it.
The night before we built it, I printed out the build plan and left it on the counter.
The Build
He measured everything himself.
I mean that seriously — I showed him how to read the tape measure, explained what the marks meant, and then handed it to him. He marked the shelf positions on both side panels, lying flat on the table with his nose practically touching the wood, making sure the number was exactly right.
Then came the drilling. We talked through why we drill pilot holes first — so the wood doesn’t split, so the screw has somewhere to go.
The assembly went fast. Glue on the shelf ends, line it up with the marks, drive the screws through the side panels. Bottom shelf first, then the middle, then the top. Each time he’d stand back and look at it, this little box taking shape on the kitchen counter.
The Name
We’d bought a Weller wood burning kit at Home Depot — a 25-watt pen with a bunch of tips. Once the case was assembled, I plugged it in and let it heat up while Zeke figured out exactly where he wanted his name.
I had him write his name in pencil on the side panel, in his own handwriting, slightly uneven, completely his: ZEKE.
The Result
The bookcase lives in the entryway now, sitting on top of his toy storage unit. Dog Man books on the bottom shelf. His other books — Investigators, Magic Tree House, a few others — on the top. Lego sets and an F-22 model on top of it.
He built the thing that holds his books. He measured it, drilled it, glued it, and burned his name into the side.
It took one Saturday.
If You Want to Build One
The whole thing cost around $40-50 in materials. You need:
- One 6-foot 1×8 pine board (have the store cut it: 2 side panels at 7¼” × 20”, and 3 shelves at 7¼” × 11½”)
- One small piece of ¼” hardboard for the back, cut to 13” × 20”
- 1¼” wood screws and a small bottle of wood glue
- 80-grit and 120-grit sandpaper
- A drill
That’s it. No saw. The store makes the cuts for free. (Call ahead and make sure the saws are working, we ended up going to 2 Home Depots)
If your kid has been watching woodworking videos and asking if they can try — say yes. Clear a Saturday. Go to Home Depot together. Let them carry the wood.
You’ll be surprised what they build.
Zeke is six and a half.