09/07/2026
Some projects are difficult because they’re big. Others are difficult because every single part of the design affects something else. This one managed to be both.
One of the most challenging and rewarding projects I ever designed and built for Cherrywood Custom Woodworking was this back-to-back set of built-in bookcases.
At first glance, it might just look like a large wall of shelves with a pair of sliding barn doors. There was, however, a whole lot more going on behind the finished product.
The first challenge was that I wasn’t really designing one wall. I was designing two completely different elevations, back-to-back, with both sides having to look intentional and function independently. Then there were two structural columns running through the whole equation. Those columns weren’t moving, so everything else had to be designed around them.
Three-dimensional design? Sure, but when you start accounting for two separate elevations, structural columns, cabinet depths, door travel, open-door positions, closed-door positions, shelving access, trim, clearances and sound control—all interacting with each other—I’d argue we were wandering into a fourth dimension somewhere along the way.
One of the things I was most particular about was the sliding doors. I didn’t want somebody to slide one of those big doors open and suddenly have it sitting across the middle of a full bookcase, covering half the shelves and visually chopping the cabinetry in two. So the dimensions of the individual bookcases were designed around the travel of the doors. Whether the doors were open or closed, they landed where they made sense within the overall design.
Sound simple after it’s finished? It wasn’t.
Then there was another problem you can’t see at all in the photographs. One side of this installation was adjacent to an entertainment area. Instead of simply building two sets of cabinetry back-to-back and calling it finished, I incorporated acoustic wall panels between the two assemblies to help keep sound from resonating throughout the rest of the house. And they worked, very well!
This project was built in individual sections in my shop, where everything could be fabricated, assembled, checked and prepared before being transported to the house. Looking back at the stacks of plywood parts and those enormous cabinet sections strapped together and waiting to leave the shop, it’s almost hard to believe they eventually became what you see in the finished room.
That is one of my favorite parts of custom woodworking. A project can begin as a few measurements scratched onto a piece of notebook paper. Then come the drawings, the plywood, and a shop full of parts that probably wouldn’t mean much to anyone else. Eventually, all of those pieces come together and become part of somebody’s home.
This one required cabinetry, architectural trim, structural problem-solving, sliding-door planning, sound control and two completely different finished elevations—all occupying the same space. Two spaces actually: their house and my brain. It was quite the challenge for me to say the least. This was akin to what Waldo may have thought had he been pulled out of one of those flat, 2-D, paper pages and inflated into real 3-D life. Those were always the projects I enjoyed the most.
— Cherrywood Custom Woodworking
