Brick and Board furniture

[tonepoet]

Here's one from the Bachelor-on-a-tight-budget days. Making furniture out of bricks and boards. Easy to assemble, easy to move to a new place, easy to shop for, easy on the budget.

Here where I have recently moved to, I have re-assembled one that my brother and I had made back in the 1980s when we were single guys sharing an apartment.



You need 4 small red bricks to be the base for the lowest first shelve and then two narrow cinderblocks to support each shelf above. Nothing to attach. Just stack it up and gravity does the rest.

Back in the day, we bought these 48" x 10" x 3/4" rough redwood boards as the shelves. There is a purple ink price marking on one end that reads $1.88. I recall 6 footers being $2.59 and we also made a ten foot long unit using a 4 foot and 6 foot section for our stereo system and for all our vinyl records. The 10 foot unit was 2 boards deep. This bookcase is one board deep.

An additional bonus to this simple construction, is that it is quite resistant to earthquakes. I lived in San Francisco in 1989 at the time of the big Loma Prieta earthquake and the only things left standing in my apartment was the Brick and Board furniture. It moved with the quake rather than falling over.

 

[GGJaguar]

Practical, reliable, sturdy, easy to assemble and disassemble. What's not to like?

 

[Uke]

That's a $150.00 shelf in today's dollars (depending on which finish you choose ).

 

[Minnesota Flats]

Ah...cinder block-and-pine board bookshelves: takes me back to my college days, some 50 odd years ago...

 

[tonepoet]

That's a $150.00 shelf in today's dollars (depending on which finish you choose ).

Yeah, these days it may not be as cheap as it was back in the 80's and something like IKEA may beat it out. We chose the cheapest wood back then, which was rough redwood.

Checking today's prices, the red bricks are 77 cents each, narrow cinder blocks are $2.87 and 48x10x1 pine boards are $10.57. I think that comes out to roughly $43 for the bookcase. I think back in the 80's it would have been about $11 for the bookcase.

 

[zulu]

I see space for a milk crate coffee table

 

[Opsimath]

I had the empty cable spool TV table. It didn't look bad at all with plants around the bottom.

 

[RBSinTo]

When we first got married, our first bookshelves were made from stained wood boards and automobile motor oil cans.
Our "dining room table" was a card table with a checkered table cloth.
When we had guests, we covered the card table with a 4'x6' piece of plywood that was secured in place with short lengths of 1"x2" screwed to the plywood to "lock it in place on top of the table.
Folding metal chairs completed the ensemble.
RBSinTo

 

[walrus]

Your homemade shelf is undoubtedly better quailty than IKEA's!

You appear to traveling back in time, @tonepoet!

walrus

 

[WaltW]

You appear to traveling back in time, @tonepoet!

walrus

Aaaaaah! Life seemed so much simpler back then. The phone was left at home, usually attached to the wall by a wire and only used when you were stationary. There was no Internet for the average American / only government. Television came through an antenna, in most cases, and there was a choice of maybe 10 channels if you were in a metropolitan area. Cars were still big and heavy for the most part and Guild Guitar was still in Westerly RI.
The closest I got to brick and board furniture were a couple metal milk crates for VHS tape storage and two beanbag chairs.

 

[Opsimath]

Never unzip a beanbag chair to see what's in there. Zillions of static electricity charged styrofoam specks will burst forth and attach themselves to everything, including the zipper that is your only hope of containing the little beasties.

 

[RBSinTo]

Stuball48,
Just so you know, your dislike of our dining area furniture and decor is the reason you were never invited over for dinner.
RBSinTo

 

[Stuball48]

Stuball48,
Just so you know, your dislike of our dining area furniture and decor is the reason you were never invited over for dinner.
RBSinTo

My apologies as I must have hit the "like" button twice. Meant for it to be a "like."

 

[adorshki]

Never unzip a beanbag chair to see what's in there. Zillions of static electricity charged styrofoam specks will burst forth and attach themselves to everything, including the zipper that is your only hope of containing the little beasties.

Doing it in a pool should eliminate the static charge. Or the bathtub. Just make sure to keep one foot in and one foot out. Or is it both feet in? I forget.

I still have both brick and board and a spool table (glass-topped, next step: decoupage).
"Scavenger Chic".

 

[RBSinTo]

My apologies as I must have hit the "like" button twice. Meant for it to be a "like."

Stuball48,
Apology accepted.
As soon as I get the Flux Capaciter fixed on my Time Machine, I'll invite you back to 1975 for dinner at our place.
RBSinTo

 

[tonepoet]

I had the empty cable spool TV table. It didn't look bad at all with plants around the bottom.

When my brothers were teens/early 20s and lived at the parents house we had an empty cable spool table and second hand sofas in the basement where we hung out. It looked very much like the set of "That 70's Show"

 

[tonepoet]

I see space for a milk crate coffee table

And I have the milk crates, so it is an option at this point.

 

[tonepoet]

Aaaaaah! Life seemed so much simpler back then. The phone was left at home, usually attached to the wall by a wire and only used when you were stationary. There was no Internet for the average American / only government. Television came through an antenna, in most cases, and there was a choice of maybe 10 channels if you were in a metropolitan area. Cars were still big and heavy for the most part and Guild Guitar was still in Westerly RI.
The closest I got to brick and board furniture were a couple metal milk crates for VHS tape storage and two beanbag chairs.

I'm dating myself, but, yes, the phone was on the wall in the kitchen at head height with a cord so short that you had to stand at the phone to use it. My folks did not want to encourage long phone calls by allowing us to sit and talk. The little lever on the bottom allowed you to select a normal or soft ringing of the bell that rang on an incoming call, but you could not shut the bell off.



TV as a kid in Detroit had 4 channels, early on. 2 CBS, 4 NBC, 7 ABC and 9 was CKLW from Windsor, Ontario across the Detroit River in Canada. Later, with UHF, Detroit had channels 50 and 56.

And, yes, cars were massive. I recall my Dad's 1968 Pontiac Bonneville having front and back seats that were like living room sofas !!!

 

[tonepoet]

The closest I got to brick and board furniture were a couple metal milk crates for VHS tape storage and two beanbag chairs.

Ah, yes, bean bag chairs. I had one back in the day, that I called "The Death Chair", because if I sat in it when I got home from work, I was out immediately and would wake up in it somewhere in the wee hours of the morning. Another wasted evening. I had to get rid of it.

 

[adorshki]

And I have the milk crates, so it is an option at this point.

To really set the vibe you need one of these: