Umamiblog

Dogfood is tasty. Well, sometimes it is.

The weekend just gone S mentioned she wanted to buy a bookcase for a specific nook in our lounge. After a fruitless search through the interior design shops on Thorndon Quay I remembered this cool web start-up I’ve been working at for the last 7+ months where you can make your own stuff!

It was great fun. Actually it was lots of hard work but sooo much more fun than I thought it would be. It spins me out a little that I made my own bookcase (and it works…).

So the process went something like this:

Measure area and scribble down ideas on paper.

Choose a material to work with and get designing in Illustrator. I ended up going for the Double-sided Whiteboard MDF 9mm

Get it laser cut through Ponoko

Get the pieces and peel protective tape off

Tolerance is never perfect first time and it took ages to get the pieces fitting together. A trusty hammer helped a lot…

Putting the pieces together it starts to look like a “real” bookcase.

Slowly the shelves start to build…

Almost complete… just making sure everything is fitting together snuggly… with no glue or screws either!

Here is the bookcase in the nook I had designed it for. It ended up being a whole lot tighter than I though it would be…

Now here is the completed bookcase, in place, and filled up with stuff.

If you like the look of it you can buy one off me or download the .eps file for free, customise it, and make it yourself.

My head is spinning with more Ponoko ideas now…