Pigeonhole Shelves for Dummy Woodworkers

pigeon-hole shelf unit

If you have a philosophical question about storage, we guess asking a freelancing ex-philosophy major for help might get you the answer you want. On the other hand, we aren't quite certain that a philosophy grad would be able to give you the best instructions for "How to Make Pigeon Hole Shelving." We think we'd rather have had someone who knows what he's talking about write the OurPastimes.com post – as opposed to Jose Leiva... What's really strange is that Jose cited a discussion of the shelf unit to the right as his "source." Yeah, sure...

We freely admit that when we saw Leiva state that,

"Pigeon hole shelving is another name for a cubby shelving system, where the shelving unit is full of sectioned off cubbies..."

...in his introduction, we were nonplussed. Apparently, however, the 3- or 4-inch square pigeonholes we envisioned are passé, so Jose's plans (we use the word loosely) might actually be on point. That doesn't mean anyone following them would end up with a usable storage space, though. Then again, given that the rest of Jose's intro says that,

"Making a pigeon hole shelving unit is not very difficult and any do-it-yourselfer will be capable of building one using a small number of tools and some relatively inexpensive materials, mainly plywood, and a few simple tools"... ...we figure he wasn't much on details (or proofreading) and neither was his content editor. That became quite clear when we learned that his readers were supposed to build the entire shelving unit of ¼-inch plywood... Yeah: that ought to stand up to some heavy use! Jose first instructs his readers to cut the pieces from a sheet of said plywood: "Cut out a 4-foot by 2-foot piece of wood for the back, two 2-foot by 1-foot pieces for the sides and four 4-foot by 1-foot pieces for the top, bottom, middle and cubby sides from a 4-foot by 8-foot sheet of plywood. Use a table saw to cut the wood..."

From those parts, we gather Leiva envisions a 2 by 4-foot box of some sort with a shelf in the middle. That's why we were a little confused by instructions to,

"Build a wooden box frame using the two 2-foot by 1-foot sides, the 4-foot by 1-foot top and the 4-foot by 1-foot bottom pieces... The frame should measure 2-feet wide by 2-feet tall and 1-foot deep."

Wait, Jose: it looks like it should be 4 feet wide, not 2! So, let's see some of the other... interesting? things Leiva has to say:

• "Attach ...by drilling 3/4-inch nails from the outside of the frame into the edge of the middle piece..."
• "Insert two cubby side pieces into the box frame on the top shelf and two on the bottom shelf; each piece should be 1 3/4 inches from the sides of the shelves and 1 1/2 inches from each other"
• "Attach the pieces by drilling 3/4-inch screws from the top and bottom of the frame into the edge of the cubby sides."

Our comments:

1. You don't "drill" nails, Jose!
2. In what universe would two dividers (which is what the "cubby sides" are) 1¾" from the sides of a 4-foot space end up 1½" apart?
3. Only attach the dividers on one edge? Is this moron kidding?

Besides the high probability that Leiva simply made up some bizarre plans, there's an even higher probability that anything made this way would collapse of its own weight. You can't screw together ¼" plywood pieces that large. The "plans" make no allowance for the thickness of the materials, either. A competent woodworker would make the case out of  ½" or ¾" plywood and cut dadoes for ¼" dividers; but based on these "plans," it's readily apparent that our Dumbass of the Day is in no way, shape, or form a competent woodworker.

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