Office build-along, pt. 12

Here's where my taking six months to router, sand, stain and varnish the lumber for my bookshelves comes back to bite me in the ass. The 2"x12" boards I'm using for the uprights were stored outside that entire time as I worked on them. Now, they were stored under cover out of rain and direct sunlight, and on 2"x4"s to keep them off the concrete, but the changes in humidity and temperature still had an impact. Two of the boards, in particular, showed significant bowing (significant being 3/4" for one and almost 2" for the other). For most of them, this wouldn't be an issue, since shelves on either side of them would force them straight. But these two... one is on the side of the corner cabinet, abutting the house support column with makes that wall irregular, and the other is the end piece closest to my office door. This is problematic, since there's not any shelving on the other side to force it straight. Because of the bowing, the carefully measured and cut shelves don't sit securely in their dado slots. See?

Not pretty. Since I don't want to mar the smooth face of the wood closest to the door, I instead drill holes through the upright paired with the bowed wood. I drill two holes in the two dado slots opposite the greatest extent of the other board's bow.

Then, I drill 1.75" wood screws through the holes into the shelves. This solidly anchors the shelves to the strong upright that is behaving itself. This is important for the next step.

The next step involved slathering an impressive amount of Titebond III wood glue into the dado slot. My choices to secure the shelf to the bowing board consist of screw, nail or glue. Either screwing or nailing from the opposite side would look damn ugly, and I'd be compelled to come up with a matching veneer to cover that with. That would be a major undertaking with disproportionate expense, not to mention taking a long time. So instead I decided on glue, crossing my fingers that the bow in the wood isn't stronger than the glue. To tilt the scales in my favor, I used Titebond III, which is a bit more expensive than the workhorse Titebond II, but is (I've been assured) a significantly more durable bonding agent. Note that I wiped all the oozing, dripping glue away with a damp cloth after this photo was taken.

The Titebond III instructions recommend clamping the glued joint together for 24 hours to allow sufficient drying time. I left them clamped for the better part of a week. Almost a month later, the join is holding steady. So, yay! First problem solved!

The next problem is more annoying. See that gap where the upright doesn't meet the corner cabinet? That's not an illusion created by the upright not being fully in position--the bow really is that bad. You could lose a small child down that gap. Yikes!

Compounding my problems is the structural column for the house protruding about 3" from the wall, creating a kind of vertical step, which isn't pretty, but it's the space I have to work with. I installed the next upright, and there's a 2.25" gap between them. Tiny, weird space. Fortunately, the top of the boards are pretty close to accurately spaced, so I measure the dado grooves and figure I need six narrow shelves not quite 3" wide to fit the gap. Since there are going to be horizontal load-bearing shelves, in this case the narrow width is a plus. I'm going to force the board straight via brute force. I also cut the outside corner so that the mini-shelves would match the geometric design aesthetic of my other protruding shelves.

My problem then became how to fit a 3" shelf into a 1.5" slot? Again, brute force is my friend. I used a crowbar to leverage the bowed board into position so I could insert the shelf. I'm not a total moron, however, so I used two wooden shims to protect the uprights' pretty stain/varnish finish from marring by the cold, cruel metal of the crowbar.

Here's a better view of my utilization of the classic simple machine.

And here's the shelf slotted into position. I was dreading dealing with the mini-shelves from the start of this project, and while the whole asymmetrical layout is still wonky, I think they look much better than I anticipated. Each shelf has enough space for a couple of books, plus a 4.5" "flying" ledge for action figures or other items to display. Not too shabby. Stay tuned. More to come.

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Office build-along, pt. 11

In my last update, I showed how I'd finally gotten the far corner upright into position, along with the end cabinet and laid down some pretty heavy-duty vapor barrier. I finished up by showing the big stack of shelving I'd cut. If you keep in mind the fact that these reports aren't going up real time, it will be easier to take in the fact that staining and varnishing all those shelves took a very, very long time to complete. We're talking a month to six weeks. The problem comes back to weather--often it was too humid or too cold to apply the various stains and polyurethanes, particularly at night, when I was most likely to have time to work on them. On the staining, I didn't cut corners and go with only one coat of Minwax's "Special Walnut," although I was sorely tempted to on occasion. No, I stained everything, let dry for a day then flipped the shelves over and stained the underside. Once that was dry, I broke out the "Dark Walnut" and repeated the process. In case you're wondering, "Dark Walnut" still is akin to painting with molasses. It's just so thick and gummy in comparison to other stains. Ugh. It slowed the process down a lot.

Once the staining was done, then came the polyurethane. Here's I cheated. The cheap radiata pine plywood I'm using is only sanded smooth on one side, with the other being fairly rough. The smooth side will be the top of the shelf, and the rough side the bottom. For the bottom, I'm only applying one coat of polyurethane, and not sanding. I feel a little guilty about this, because it's not completely professional, but I don't know of anyone who is going to feel the undersides of my shelves and criticize me for it. It may be more prone to dust collecting, but that's something I'll have to live with. As for the top sides, I applied two coats of polyurethane, sanding in between. In an ideal world, I'd have applied a third coat, since polyurethane doesn't build up as thickly or smoothly as sanding sealer, but I'd like to finish this before I retire, so two coats it is.

One final note--because the plywood was inexpensive, it did not come without blemishes. The thin surface veneer on the smooth side was cracked and warping in a handful of places. This resulted in 4-5 shelves (including one of the diamond-shaped corner pieces) with notable surface defects. They're not smooth. Flipping the board upside down was out of the question unless I wanted to spend hours sanding down that rough surface and re-varnishing (which I didn't), so I made an executive decision to use the ugly boards for the top shelves, which are about 8 feet up and unlikely to suffer close examination. So, yeah, I'm hiding my mistakes.

And speaking of mistakes, the one thing that bothered me the most about my old office bookshelves, and still nags me to this day, is the fact that I didn't build a "top" into it. That is, the white ceiling could be seen when looking up at the top of the shelves. It's a little thing, maybe, but jarring to me. In the photo above, you can see what I'm talking about. That little white sliver between the books and crown molding might as well be a flashing beacon as far as I'm concerned. With this new bookcase, I would not make the same mistake twice.

So this is what I did. I went back to the area lumber yards and found the thinnest, cheapest plywood sheet I could find. What I came up with was something called "Utility Panel" that cost me $9. Keep in mind that hardwoods--oak, etc.--are considered the beauty woods, while softwoods--evergreens like pine, etc.--are not pretty and considered suitable for structure use. Probably 95 percent of my bookcase is pine or other softwood (which doesn't necessarily mean it's soft, that's just a broad classification), so I'm spending significant effort to make it look nice. This utility panel stuff isn't something you'd want front and center, but for my use it is going to go mostly unnoticed, and that's just fine.

First off, imagine I walked you through the whole staining process on one side of this utility panel. Just one coat, "Special Walnut," like I applied to the lauan paneling for the back of the case. Fortunately, the stain comes out pretty dark on this wood, which is what I want. Next, imagine I documented using my circle saw to cut an 11" wide strip down the length of the panel. Got it? Great, you're caught up then. I measured the distance between the shelving uprights where they meet the ceiling, and that comes out to roughly 29.5". So I mark 29.5" on the 11" wide strip, above, then cut with the circle saw, below.

Now, remember that 2x4 I sliced up into triangular sections a while back? Imagine I stained them and varnished the widest face on each. Now, since they're all clean and pretty, I cut a couple of 29.5" pieces from them.

Now, I pair those triangles up with the stained utility panel section. See what I'm doing with them?

Before I install the pieces, I need to mark where the wall studs are. Remember, I've been using wall and ceiling marks, but these are about to be covered up. I use blue painter's tape for this purpose, mainly because that's the first thing I found.

Next, whilst holding the ceiling panel and triangle brace in place, I drill two pilot holes through the brace into the wall stud. Then I used a larger bit to give the screws a shallow depression to countersink into. Then I screw in the screws. That sounds pretty straightforward, but it a bit more challenging when you have to change the drill bits one-handed, since the other hand is holding the wood in place. I'm sure there's a simpler way to do this, but I've never claimed to be the sharpest nail in the box when it comes to carpentry. I also drilled a pilot hole through the upright to the right, and ran a long, 3" screw through it into the triangular brace. Repeat as necessary.

Once the back brace is in place, I attach the front brace to the uprights. Same drill applies, first the pilot holes, then a countersink hole, then I put the screw in. Despite my efforts, I split the wood on three of my first four efforts. It's not pretty, but this will be covered by crown molding eventually. Holding the ceiling piece up is its primary job--structural bracing is minimal, mostly just to ensure the uprights are parallel until I can get the shelves in.

Those screw holes are pretty unsightly, so I fill them with wood putty. Once they're dry, I hit 'em with a splash of "Dark Walnut" and they're not nearly as noticeable. Yes, I've learned my lesson with "Dark Walnut." It's good for these little details but you have to wipe up the excess immediately.

So, with the uprights in place, the time came to install the shelves. The 9" wide end shelves were a little tight in some cases, but a few whacks with the rubber mallet got them in place nicely. The next column of 30" wide shelves slid into the routered dados just as pretty as you please. The next column? No so much. Back when I routered the base of the uprights to make everything fit, well, this middle column of shelves gave up more space than the rest, and came out almost exactly half an inch narrower than any of the other columns. So after testing the proper length to fit on a piece of scrap lumber, I ran five shelves across my table saw to trim off that extra half inch. The result was a perfect fit, and a few whacks with the rubber mallet got the top shelf in, correcting a slight bit of warp in the right upright. The final column of shelves went in nicely, the result being one wall that is finally starting to look like bookshelves.

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Office build-along, pt. 10

Okay, we've run into some problems. And by "we" I mean "me." Take a look at the photo of the attached end cabinet below. The right side of the cabinet is about 1/2 an inch from laying flush against the wall. That looks like a pretty insignificant amount, but it's not. Turns out my walls--at least in that corner--are not squared. The upright shelf support is one or two degrees off 90, which means the cabinet attached to it does not line up flush with the next upright shelf support to go in. It also means that the shelves won't fit into the routered dado grooves. They go in about half way and then wedge in there. You'd think you could simply force the cabinet and uprights into position, the deviation being so small, but you'd be wrong.

There are several possible solutions, but the one I went with was to disassemble everything, pull that offending upright away from the wall, then reattach it using shims to make up the difference. How'd it work? Good enough for the pieces to fit the way the should. Mostly. It's not pretty, but that will be covered up by trim when I'm finished.

The process of disassembling the pieces also brought to my attention another problem that would've been far, far more difficult to deal with if I didn't discover it until later. I hadn't laid down a vapor barrier. When one has wood coming into contact with concrete, moisture can migrate up through said concrete and accumulate in the wood, leading to the potential for rot, mold and other unpleasant things. A moisture/vapor barrier prevents this. Now the laminate flooring had a very cheap, thin cushion that is of foamlike plastic origin. I'm pretty sure that did double-duty as a vapor barrier. But it's so bargain basement I'm ripping it out to replace it with one of higher quality. It also didn't reach all the way to the wall, which I'm rectifying now. I'm laying the new vapor barrier down and installing the bookshelves over it. No matter how much I vacuum and sweep, dirt and debris turns out in spades for the black vapor barrier.

I'm also facing another problem. The 2x12 uprights have been stored outside for months as I cut, sand, stain and varnish them. They're sheltered on the back patio, but still exposed to wide temperature swings as well as humidity. What started out as 10 rail-straight boards are now 10 boards that are developing slight warps. Nothing really obvious, but I'm finding little deviations when I move them into position. I need some way to keep them consistently vertical and plum. Also, the back wall doesn't have a convenient joist to attach all the uprights to. The existing studs are not positioned where the uprights can be directly attached. I could just wedge everything in there and depend on gravity to keep it stable, but that's just asking for trouble. How to anchor the uprights and ensure proper positioning?

I'm going to try something I considered for the previous bookshelf build at the old house, but discarded because there were convenient joists for attachment. I set my grandfather's old Rockwell table saw to make a 45 degree cut. Have I mentioned how much I use this table saw and other tools inherited from Grandpa Fritz? Because I do use them. A lot. Above is the dial setting, and below is what the blade actually looks like.

Then I ran a straight 2x4 through, twice at 45 degrees and once at 90 degrees to split the board into four triangular strips. I mis-measured a little, so the triangles aren't all equal in size, but they're still close enough for my needs. I'll cut each of these into lengths to fit between the very tops of the upright 2x12 shelf supports. I'll screw the uprights to the triangle strips, then screw the strips into the wall studs. Plus, it should solve another issue that's a carryover from the old house, but I'm not quite there yet.

Where I am at is the shelf-cutting phase. After calculating how much shelf space I actually needed, I bit the bullet and bought four 4x8 sheets of 23/32" thick radiata pine plywood. That's just a hair thinner than the 3/4" router cuts I made for the shelving, so should fit even with a couple coats of varnish. At the old house, I bought plywood that was the same thickness as the cuts, and none of them would fit, so I had to sand down all the edges. Ugh. The pine plywood is not as nice as oak or Baltic birch or even spruce plywood. It's only sanded on one side, but it was the most affordable plywood available. The shelves will be covered with books, so I can't afford to be too picky.

I use a T square, ruler and measuring tape to mark the cuts. Each shelf is approximately 30" wide and 11" deep.

Measure twice and cut once, as the saying goes. Unfortunately, sometimes that's not even enough. Working late at night I sometimes get a little punchy and the numbers swim around in my head, screwing things up (as you'll soon see). But the shelf measurements were pretty straightforward. The plywood sheets were too big to run through the table saw with any accuracy, so instead I used Grandpa Fritz's circle saw to split the sheets up into 30" sections.

On a table saw, 30" sections of plywood are much more manageable. I set the rip fence to give me an 11" wide cut, and ran those sections through, over and over and over, assembly-line style. I have to pause here a moment to extol the virtues of wearing eye protection whilst using power tools. With saws and sanders, there's a lot of sawdust thrown up, and even occasional splinters. These will invariably fly into your face. One piece of gritty sawdust in the eye is terribly uncomfortable. I'm too old to feel the invulnerability of youth anymore, and I have no desire to go blind in one or both eyes, so I wear safety goggles religiously now. That wasn't always the case, but now it is. I recommend hard plastic goggles that are open to the sides, allowing plenty of air flow. Those that form a seal around the face quickly fog up if you're doing any kind of exertion, despite the fact they have rubber vents. Those things are useless if you can't see out of them. The open plastic ones seem less advanced, but they're more effective in my book.

And here they are, 25 nearly-identical shelves. I also did the narrow end shelves as well. The table saw's a great time-saver. I can't begin to imagine how long it'd take using only hand saws.

And fitting one into a random shelf slot proves to be a success! Not only did it fit, sliding in with little effort, it was level! I can assure you this wasn't a given, despite my efforts.

Now things get tricky. The corner cabinet is essentially diamond-shaped. Because of the way it's built, it can't actually sit flush against the back corner, because it won't line up with the 2x12 uprights. Trust me on this. There's slightly less than a 1/4 inch discrepancy here, so to make up the difference, I glued shims along the back to make up the difference. I used Loctite II glue, which is pretty darn strong, and clamped the shims down for and hour to ensure the bond set.

To cut the shelves, which look a whole lot like Superman's "S" shield, I first cut a template out using poster board. This ensures consistency in each shelf--no small consideration when working with an odd shape.

Using the template as a guide, I first cut out 5 squares on the table saw (one's slightly different, but we'll get to that). Then, because one corner has to come off at a 45 degree angle and I don't have a jig for the table saw that can accommodate that, I clamp the shelf to a convenient plywood surface and use the circle saw to hand-cut along the pencil line. It's a short cut, and the circle saw inherently doesn't let you deviate too much, so this freehand approach went pretty successfully.

Here's where things go FUBAR. Remember I mentioned that one square was a little different? That's because it's the bottom, base shelf, which will attach directly onto the corner cabinet's top. I did something stupid early on that I didn't realize until now. Back at the old house, I simply cut the base shelves to fit and laid them on top of the cabinets when the time came. I think I used paneling nails to secure them in place, I can't exactly remember. Well, this time around, I routered dado grooves for the base shelves. Big mistake. If you look back to my earlier installments of this build-along, you'll remember I had difficulty lining the routered cuts up consistently. For the upper shelves, this didn't make much difference, but for the base shelf, it does. One of the grooves lined up slightly below the top of the cabinet, and the opposite groove floated a little above. This meant there was no way the shelf could physically fit as-is.

So how did your resident genius think to remedy this situation? Why, by using the tool that got him into this mess in the first place! This is otherwise known as throwing good money after bad. I pencil-marked the area that needed to be stripped to make the board fit into the routered slot, then freehanded the cut. It wasn't pretty, but it was late and I was tired. Not the best of decision-making conditions. Then, because I'm a can-do person, I repeated the action on the other side. Except... one shelf support was lower, and one higher, remember? I cut both of these on the top, which meant the shelf still didn't fit! Argh!

So I went back and routered the underside to make it fit. And yes, it did finally fit. Except... remember how this is the base shelf? It is cut larger than the others, so that 2" protrudes forward over the cabinet. A lip, as it were, rather than coming out flush. And now I had three raggedy-ass router cuts extending all the way out to the edge of the shelf. The front edge will be covered by trim, but those ugly cuts will be painfully visible where only smooth shelf should be. Is there any wonder why I've never been invited to join MENSA?

So help me, in my addled state I still thought I could fix it. In my defense, my plywood supply was running low and I wasn't sure I could cut a new shelf and not have to go buy another sheet to finish out my other needs. So, in order to save me from having to cut a new shelf, how could I fix those wayward cuts? Wood putty! Honestly, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Never mind the fact that I've never gotten wood putty to take stain enough to blend in with the surrounding wood. So, yeah. I measured and puttied and scraped and sculpted. This is the best I could come up with. Guess what? It did not get any prettier once dried.

In the harsh light of day, I finally admitted defeat and accepted this was one sow's ear that I could not make into a silk purse. I did some measuring and calculating and came up with the realization I could cut a new shelf and have enough wood to finish the job if I cannibalized this messed-up shelf and cut smaller end shelves out of it. So that's what I did. Below is the newly-cut square shelf ready to be turned into Superman's "S" shield.

Why did I use the jig saw this time rather than the circle saw? Honestly, I have no answer. I think maybe the freehand router work had me a bit spooked, and I wanted a hard guide to ensure a straight cut. Because of the size of the cut and the physical shape of the circle saw, that would've been challenging with the circle saw, whereas the smaller jig saw was much easier to line up and get the guide properly anchored.

And here's the corner cabinet, of which cutting the shelves for it has consumed parts of two days now. I'm not a terribly efficient wood worker, you'll notice. This is without the base shelf...

And this is with the new-cut base shelf! Perfect fit! You'll notice I learned from my previous mistake and did not attempt to make the shelf compatible with the misbegotten routered dado slots. Instead, I went back to what I did more than a decade ago and cut the shelf to rest atop the cabinet. The shelf itself and additional trim pieces will hide the now-vestigial slots, and we shall never speak of them again. *sigh*

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Office build-along, pt. 9

Progress on my office bookshelves has slowed, but not stopped. I'm keeping at it. Part of the problem is the season. Despite the relative lack of winter weather, at the stage I'm in it is often too cold or too wet or too windy to work outdoors, and the staining and varnishing produces too many fumes to safely breath whilst working in the garage. So progress is slow.

That said, today I'm going to talk about a major milestone and genuine headache for woodworkers in general: Polyurethane. When I built my bookshelves at the old house, I didn't use polyurethane. Instead, I applied sanding sealer, which builds up quickly after just a couple coats to form a smooth, shiny surface. The downside to sanding sealer is that it is soft and scratches easily. It's not terribly durable. I didn't know that then--my main concern was getting a polished, smooth finish on my shelves. Polyurethane, on the other hand, is harder, more durable and comes in a wider variety of finishes. I used polyurethane on my workbench for its durable properties, so I thought I should stick with it for the bookshelves.

For the record, I went with a satin finish. I though full gloss coat would look cheap, but I'd put too much effort into this to settle for a dull matte finish. Satin was a comfortable compromise.

The thing is, polyurethane (and spar urethane for outside projects) comes with its own set of challenges. Go online and the most common complaint focuses on bubbles. Tiny bubbles like to form in polyurathane, and if they dry that way, the surface is marred and uneven. Smooth and glassy is what we're going for here, remember? In fact, people are so paranoid about bubbles forming that the can carries a warning not to shake it to mix contents, because that will induce bubble-forming. Well, I'm here to tell you that you shouldn't shake a can of polyurethane to mix it, but not out of fear of bubbles. It separates after sitting a long time into an oily liquid and thicker, resinous goo that will not willingly mix together no matter how much you shake a can. They can only be mixed by stirring, and stirring, and stirring. Shaking, and even stirring, will create largish bubbles, but these aren't stable and pop easily. No, the bubbles that bedevil woodworkers are those that form when actually applying the varnish to the wood. Unlike stain, polyurethane is something of a prima donna when it comes to application and requires a decent-quality brush. Cheap bristle brushes and foam brushes apply it unevenly and are very frustrating to try and use. I know, because I tried. The polyurethane should be applied slowly in long, straight strokes. That show part is key. The slower applied, the fewer tiny bubbles form, but at some point you get diminishing returns. You have to figure what trade-off you're comfortable with. For me, I apply to the entire board/section at a moderate speed. The polyurethane begins curing almost immediately, so usually by the time I've finished the initial coat on a board, it's gone from liquid to tacky. At this point I give it another brush-over with more vigorous back-and-forth strokes, and this seems sufficient to eliminate most remaining bubbles. At least, that's what seems to work for me. Some people can be borderline superstitious with polyurethane, so they might give completely different advice.

Another thing I can't recommend highly enough is to have back lighting. That is, a strong light source opposite you that can reflect off the wet, freshly-varnished surface. If a fixed light's not available, a flashlight will do. That reflection is the most effective means of locating areas that the brush missed. The last thing you want is to spend 20 minutes on a shelf only to discover later that there's a big, bare spot along the left edge. There are always bare spots. The bare spots kill the reflection and show up easily, showing exactly where another few brush strokes are needed.

Another thing I can't stress enough: Less is more. Apply the polyurethane in thin coats. Resist the temptation to glop it on. If memory serves, sanding sealer was very forgiving on this count. Not polyurethane. Thickly applied, it doesn't cure properly and remains soft, which defeats the purpose of using polyurethane. With this, you apply a thin coat, and once it dries, sand lightly with a fine grit sandpaper (I use 400) and then apply another thin coat. The idea is to just remove the surface imperfections, bubbles, etc. with the sanding. You don't want to sand hard enough to remove the coating and get down to the actual wood. Repeat this process until the buildup is sufficiently smooth. To be honest, this is a serious time sink, because polyurethane doesn't contain the filler additives of sanding sealer, and therefore doesn't build up nearly as quickly as sanding sealer. Whereas two coats of sanding sealer was more than enough to give me a smooth, glossy surface on the old bookshelves, the polyurethane demands three or more coats to match that level of finish. It's not a fast process, so that extra work adds up. The temptation to cut corners and say "Good enough" is very strong, and I'll admit I've done so on the undersides of shelves, where one coat is sufficient to seal the wood but not enough to give it that smooth texture. I justify this by saying, "Who looks at the undersides of shelves, anyway?"

Despite all that, the 2"x12" upright shelf supports are all finished. Stained, coated and sanded, ready for installation. So here I'm installing the end board on the far wall. Firstly, I need to use a stud finder to locate where anchor spots may be lurking behind the sheetrock. Fortunately, there are horizontal framing boards near the top of the wall that come down 2.5" below the ceiling.

I mark the bottom edge of the framing boards, just to be on the safe side. Relying on my memory is a good way to make a lot of avoidable mistakes.

Next, I repeat the process for the lower part of the wall.

On the upright shelf support, I mark where the framing boards would be, then mark the spot for a pilot hole about an inch from the edge of the board.

I use a large drill bit--I can't recall the exact size, but it's diameter is slightly larger than the screws I'm using--to make a shallow, pseudo-pocket hole. I say pseudo, because true pocket holes are normally drilled as shallow angles. This one's right at 90 degrees.

Then I take a smaller bit--again, not sure the size but it's slightly smaller than the thread width of my screws--to drill the pilot hold directly in the middle of the pocket hole. Drilling a pilot hole serves two purposes: 1) it eliminates the chance of the wood splitting while drilling in a screw, and 2) it makes the drilling of said screw much easier.

This is what the pocket/pilot combination looks like on the unstained end of the upright, the part that will be covered by the base cabinet.

For comparison's sake, this is what the pocket/pilot looks like on the stained and finished end. Once all is said and done, I'll fill the shallow pocket hole with wood putty and stain it to match the surrounding wood. It should be mostly invisible, if I manage to use the proper stain color.

I set the upright against the wall where it meets the floor, and push it up into position. It's looking more and more likely that I'll end up replacing both the baseboards and crown molding in my office. I'd hoped to avoid that because of the expense, but I'm not seeing any way around it as this project progresses.

Now I drill 3" wood screws through the pilot hole to anchor the upright to the wall. Those are long screws and not super-easy to work with, but necessary when going through 2" of pine and another 1/2" of sheetrock. You've got to find solid wood to anchor the shelf.

The top didn't quite want to fit into position. I'd tested it before, and it was tight then. Storage outside must've caused some swelling in the wood from the absorption of moisture from the air. It's been humid lately. So I pull out one of my newer purchases, a rubber mallet. A few solid whacks and the upright is neatly in place. What's really nice is that the rubber doesn't damage the wood or leave any marks on the finish. I expect I'll be repeating this in the near future.

With the upright firmly in place, I can take the next step and attach the end cabinet. The process is essentially the same--drill pilot holes through both the cabinet and upright, then insert screw. I didn't bother with the pocket holes this time, because a shelf will be covering the hollow where the screws reside.

And there you have it! One end of my built-in bookshelf has taken shape, with more to come!

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