Bookshelves and display storage

Why the bottom is closed

The shape in this department is consistent: open tiers above, cabinet doors below. It is the arrangement that suits how a room is actually used. Books, plants and framed photographs go up where they read as decoration. Router boxes, paperwork and board games go behind the doors at knee height where nobody has to look at them.

The shelves above the cabinet are adjustable on these models, which matters more for books than people expect. Paperbacks, hardbacks and art books differ by several inches in height, and a fixed shelf forces you to lay the tall ones flat.

Height, and the anchor that goes with it

At 70.1 inches these are tall pieces on a small footprint, which is the classic tip-over shape. The Consumer Product Safety Commission's tip-over campaign asks for top-heavy furniture to be anchored and for the anchor to go on when the piece is built rather than at some later date that never arrives.

Worth knowing: bookcases are specifically named as outside the scope of the federal clothing storage unit standard. That means a bookshelf has not been through the three stability tests a dresser has, which is an argument for anchoring it, not an argument for relaxing about it.

Load and finish

Books are heavier than anything else people put on shelves. Where a shelf load figure is published for a piece we print it on the product page, and where it is not we leave the line out rather than inventing a number that someone might trust with an encyclopaedia.

Finishes run grey, white, black and two brown tones. The brown ones photograph as the warmest option and suit a room with existing timber. Grey and white recede, which is the right choice when the books are the colour in the room.