Hey everyone,

Over the long weekend, my dad, Tara, and I built the globe shelf that I have been planning for quite some time. It took a lot longer than we had thought - 2.5 days!

It started with my vision of making a globe shelf that met the following criteria (usually mutually exclusive):
1. Globes as close to ceiling as possible
2. Bulbs centered vertically inside globes

This design fit both of these criteria together. Plus, you can change the bulbs without touching the globes, and change the bulb height for different globes with little effort.

The shelf is supported by brackets on top, so there are no visible supports under it.

The globes are on a central dimmer, located in the back corner on the bottom side of the shelf.

The swing-down lower panels allow access to change the bulbs from underneath. You can also easily remove the individual "lamp modules" if they stop working or need to be switched to ones with different heights.



The shelves themselves each have Wiremold power outlet strips inside of them, allowing each lamp module to be unplugged, and preventing the flexing of wire nut connetions when changing bulbs.

Each lamp module is held in place by two thumb screws.





I guess the next step is to find more globes! We'll replace the one fantasy globe (Oldsmobile) first, then rotate any future globes through the shelf. We're already wishing we had a second shelf!

Wes

Very nice job Wes!!!!!

Richard

Absolutely beautiful job!!!
Mike

Nice work, looks great.

Mighty fine job. Looks great. I'm gonna steal that idea!
Paddy

The fans with a plan! Extremely well done,
congrats on your project.

Mick

EXCELLENT JOB...TOTALLY IMPRESSED!

LOOKS LIKE TO SOMETHING I MIGHT'VE THOUGHT OF AND MY BROTHER AND I WOULD'VE CONCOCTED!

I WAS GONNA SUGGEST USING LOW WATTAGE FLUORO COMPACTS, BUT YOU DID SAY YOU HAD A DIMMER!....COOL BEANZ, DUDE!

~DOC

What a neat way to go...good job!!

Wes and Tara - looks great!!!
I'll be the dumb one here - What supports are used to hold the weight of the shelf and globes? It appears there are some brackets fastened to the wall but how did you support the weight near the outside of the shelf? Love the idea and especially the drop down to change the bulbs and plugs.

nice - looks sweet

Thanks for all of the nice comments! We're very happy with it.

Wads, the shelf is supported by the L-shaped stamped steel brackets that you normally find mounted UNDER a shelf. We put them on top instead, and drilled an extra hole in the center of the leg that sits on top of the shelf. If you look at the 5th picture, you can see the Nylock nuts and fender washers on the ends of the screws that go through the L-brackets up top. It's plenty strong, and it's a nice way to go because it doesn't show up very much.

Getting the spacing right was tricky - I wanted a bracket on at least every other stud, but since I had to cram the globes together, the stud spacing and globe spacing were almost the same. It was hard to set it up where the L-brackets didn't interfere with the aluminum globe rings. I finally just made an Excel spreadsheet that calculated all of the stud spacings, globe ring edges, L-bracket edges, etc. Then I could just enter a globe spacing in inches and "stating position" and it would automatically calculate everything. But, that's probably more than you wanted to know

Thanks again!
Wes

OK Wes but what did you do with the do hicky, thing a ma jig and the thingy do? LOL
Mike

Thanks Wes - again nice job.

You're crackin' me up Wes.... I was thinking that there must be a "No pictures on the wall" joke, and you come back with an Excel spreadsheet formula for bracket spacing.... 2Cool. Some day I gotta get one....

Wes great job on the display shelf, I knew you had a plan and glad to see it on display. Now about the Olds. globe, knowing how much Tara loves them Olds. You may have to leave that one. Norm.

Nah...we want to try to keep original globes on the shelf and the Oldsmobile is a repro. (It's helping to fill the space right now!) But, when it gets kicked off by another globe, it's going back to it's old home on top of my desk. And, after taking forever to figure out (on paper) that the original spacing we wanted would totally not work, the spreadsheet was a very good idea! Made the job much easier, and that way, we couldn't screw up the math! (But, I do find it amusing, too...leave it to Wes!)
Tara