3 – I think you should teach children about the dangers of climbing these shelves. Teaching is always better than assuming they know or will find out. These two things are often dangerous with kids if they choose to “Learn” when not supervised.

When you drill the hole in each end of the board, you can take some nice rope, twine, cable, depending on what you have, feed it through each hole, making sure to knot the ends securely. Then you can add a bracket with the middle of the line secured by a bracket or sorts to the wall. You should make sure to take up the slack before the point where you are knotting each end.

Finally, I don’t think safety is ever tacky and I don’t think anyone else should either. I think in California, they are probably used to a certain amount of tacky, with all the earthquakes they have, but then again, that is assuming people are prepared….

Anyways, thanks for letting me update my post a bit. Sorry if there was any confusion about my previous post.

I had forgotten about these kinds of shelves, but they are quite handy, especially when you are on a tight budget and can’t afford much.

I have to point out a few things here.

1 – My parents had these kinds of shelves in our living room for a while and then they were put in the garage and basement. I didn’t think they looked tacky, but instead genius….

2 – Although we didn’t have much while I was growing up, we were happy. We often spent time in the garage, but we weren’t allowed to just do what we pleased. My parents did teach us girls, to work on cars, fix things and make things. So we were quite handy…. I spent many a happy hour helping my father, mother and granfather, in the workshop, cars and other assorted projects wtih rusty old nails and tools. I can even remember driving the lawn mower before I was 12.

3 – Kids are of course unpredictable as always. Even more so now, because as parents, we are restricted on what we can and can’t do to them. So as always, you should be careful and not let them play on the shelves. That being said, the best thing, is to teach them and also to anchor them, if children might possibly be tempted to play on them. I would think you could “Glue the blocks together and that you could use a similar glue for the wood and block join. Adding an anchor should be pretty easy too, I’m sure they sell them, but you could drill a hole in each end of the plank at the top and then tie it into the wall with a bracket of sorts… Even better, for those in California and other earthquake areas, would be to tie each board into the wall… The bracket could be hidden, so as not to look tacky when looking at it. I would think that safety should be formost and never look tacky…

4 – One resource that no one here has thought about for these cinder blocks is your local landfill or recycling facility. My husband works for a construction company and often, when he goes to the dump, he finds that other companies are throwing them away. He’s talked to the landfill or tranfer station manager and workers and they have let him take them away for free. By taking them away and repurposing them, he is helping the environment, saving us money, saving space in landfills and sometimes his saving his company money… I use the blocks for my beehive stands… I never thought about spraying them with color, so I will have to try that…

5 – These shelves would be great in the basement, for storage of camping equiment, porcelain or ceramic molds, clothing storage, etc…. I’m going to have to try these out again….

My what a crazy world you must live in…I can predict gravity…it pull things down. I think that what j0lt meant was, toddlers are unpredictable.

I suppose gluing the cinderblocks to the wood then using a bracket to attach it to the wall would make it california safe though. A little extra work and cost but not much.

I guess sturdiness could be a problem at some point, but I’m sure the blocks could be cemented together or something. I would be more concerned about the structure colapsing on it’s own, over time anyway. Like j0lt said, gravity is holding it together and nobody can predict gravity. I would personally recomend a middle column of blocks to support the structure. Even a bunch of light items can cause it to buckle.

If it were me, the garage would be off limits to small children in the 1st place. Kids are notorious for climbing things but that’s why parents set rules. It probably wouldn’t matter what the shelves are made of, a book case would tip and hanging shelves, even if they are really sturdy, might come off the wall along with their contents.

I see a lot of parents giving their kids free range of the house. They either don’t care, are too busy to monitor them, or don’t consistantly enforce boundaries. They feel guilty, like they are being mean, give in then get frustrated when the kid pushes his limits so they give up. A child has no business climbing on furniture regardless of where it is anyway. That’s what toys and playgrounds are for.

Yes, so true! In our first house (lit by gaslight…), our living room, TV room, and spare bedroom were furnished with blocks & boards. In those days, TV sets were bulky, heavy contraptions. I managed somehow to get a couple of two-inch-thick redwood boards (don’t ask how…I’d be surprised if they even manufacture such lumber anymore!), which I varnished & then set up across the CBs to support the television. It worked, and it actually LOOKED GOOD!

In the living room, we had eight-foot bookcases and a sofa table that held an old aquarium for our goldfish. They weren’t quite so handsome, but they sure did the job. And in the spare bedroom (our office) I built a big desk and another set of bookcases. The beauty of brick-&-board bookcases is that they’re infinitely expandable–you can keep adding to them as you need more storage space.

Painting the blocks helps a lot. So does staining and varnishing the boards…or just painting them a color that goes with your other bargain decor.

You can also build a desk with good storage by stretching boards across two low file cabinets, which you often find in yard sales. Just be sure you’re getting two cabinets that are the same height. Another device, which doesn’t provide you any storage space but which looks kinda stylish, is to lay boards across a pair of sawhorses. You don’t see those in yard sales as much as file cabinets, but they’re pretty cheap at HD.

Just now, my indoor bricks & boards are restricted to the closets in my home office & library (formerly a spare bedroom)–they fill up the interior of two long, narrow closets and provide a ton of space for linens, art & sewing supplies, Christmas wrap, wintertime table fan storage, small kitchen appliances & serving dishes that won’t fit in the small kitchen, tax records, computer gadgetry, and office supplies.

It was a very nice effect, and very cheap!

Why replace them? I got mighty tired of all the dust they collect. And yup…they DO look tacky. I have to wash my laundry in that garage, and also the garage is the first thing I see when I get home. It’s worth a little cash outlay to have the place not be messy, dirty, and depressing.

Besides, blocks take up so much space, you can get three times as much storage out of built shelving.

Thanks,
Mickey

So fellow frugalist…lame, but I had to include your blog in my top 3 Frugal Subversive nominations! So the post is here Me Frugal Subversive