Kids Library

Video - July 8, 2020

We have a lot of kids in our neighborhood and Nicole thought it would be fun to put out a bunch of books for them to enjoy. She’s been storing the books in a plastic tote and has been asking me to make a nice water-tight library for months. Unfortunately, we left the books out there during a rain storm and everything got wet. She gave the the sad puppy dog eyes so I had to choice but to prioritize this build. It’s a simple build featuring outdoor-rated plywood, a glass panel door, and pocket screw construction.

While we put our library on a bench, you can absolutely mount it on a mailbox post of some kind for a more permanent installation. While we didn’t register our library with Little Free Library, I thought I’d mention that as an option for those who want to have their library placed on their map.

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Discussion

Terry Pitts July 8, 2020 9:52 am

I need to make one

Reply
Derek Schulte July 8, 2020 1:09 pm

Marc:

Nice job. I recently built the most basic Little Library essentially from the “plans” of the Little Free Library organization’s plan book. Your design appears to be much easier and superior in many ways (including aesthetics), and better documented.

I’m not comfortable putting glass so near our sidewalk in our neighborhood, so I used acrylic, which alas, can be scratched easily.

Some tips on glass that may not be obvious to some people:
1. Scoring and breaking glass requires untempered glass. Tempered glass will shatter and would need to be bought at the desired size.
2. Bullseye Glass is a fabulous resource for glass work and they have cutting tips at http://www.bullseyeglass.com/e.....tting.html and at http://www.bullseyeglass.com/i.....utting.pdf
3. Adding some additional protection to the roof and roof edges may be a smart thing for longevity, e.g. roofing material or aluminum
4. You might want to add some pointers on posts for ground mounting (depth into soil, pressure treating options, etc.) as it can have a big impact on how straight and long it lasts.
5. The Little Free Library organization has been in/through a bit of infighting, but deserves mentioning for their registry and such. http://www.littlefreelibrary.org. That said, I am a very precise/detailed engineer by trade and I found their library plans to have many minor errors — working from as-built dimensions and such may make this irrelevant for most builders, but it made me krazy (your plans look better!).

Thank you!!

Reply
Hansie Janse van Rensburg July 10, 2020 9:20 am

Thanks for making this great build available for free. It is wonderful and great way to get the kids to read.

PS. I love your youtube channel.

Reply
usvintagewood September 10, 2020 1:19 am

This video is brilliant and I’m in the middle of trying to build this for my son. I’ve had to try with a rip saw and more primitive tools but so far ok. However, I was wondering if you could tell me what size pocket screws I would need to get. Thanks for the vid. Even though this project is fairly simple, it’s still a good skill builder piece as it incorporates working with some angles, dealing with orders of operation, and other skills that can be translated to many projects.

Reply
Ac August 15, 2021 8:06 pm

Couod this ideally all be done with a jigsaw?

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Kids Library

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