How much did you spend making shelves?

Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum

Help Support Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

jess32247

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 8, 2012
Messages
576
I'm curious, how much did you spend making shelves? I'll be redoing my girls cage and putting new shelves in soon. The first time I made shelves, I bought a thick long plank of KD pine and cut it to the sizes I wanted myself when I got home. Needless to say, I'm not very good with a handsaw, so you can imagine how bad they look!

How much did it cost you to get it cut? Did you by a board of wood or plank or something totally diffrent? How much did that cost by itself? And did you write down the measurments of the shelves you wanted before you bought the wood?

Sorry about all the questions, I feel silly for asking all asking! I just want general idea of what to expect when I go in. Thank you :)
 
If you measure what you want Lowe's will cut it for you for free. Make sure not to get wood that is too thick as it will be heavy on the cage bars.
 
I look in the discounted wood section, I don't need 8ft and often get a perfect board for a dollar or two, they cut it for free. We have a Habitat for Humanity thrift store....now called Restore where I get all kinds of brackets and hardware for pennies on the dollar
 
I paid $23 at Home Depot for a 12ft board of KD pine and the guy that helped me cut it for free. I had a lot of shelves for him to cut. He was so nice and I told him what I was buying it for, my chinchilla. He asked to see pictures of her and said to stop by if I needed the shelves re-cut. He gave me his card too.

For a 12 ft board we got a ton of shelves in all sizes! I did stock up on fender washers too for shelves that cost $7 for 40 of them. Love that place!!
 
Thanks so much for the help everyone :) I hope they have boards big enough to fit the width I want, I really have no idea what kind of things they have. The shelves I have now put a lot of unneeded strain on the cage since it's so thick, how thick are the shelves you have? Mine are a bit bigger then 1 1/2 which is pretty insane compared to everyone elses. No idea how I messed this up so much!
 
Costed me about 60 bucks to buy the wood and hardware to make about 8 ledges, including two of those were twice as long. They cut it right there at home depot!
 
Oops sorry I forgot to put that in my post. I buy the 1 x 12's....my husband said they are classified as 1 by's so what ever length you want. Honestly, the 1x12's are nice. They make decent shelves. I post a picture of my FN 182 on the last page of the Ferret Nation cllub, if you would like to see the size I chose.
 
Oops sorry I forgot to put that in my post. I buy the 1 x 12's....my husband said they are classified as 1 by's so what ever length you want. Honestly, the 1x12's are nice. They make decent shelves. I post a picture of my FN 182 on the last page of the Ferret Nation cllub, if you would like to see the size I chose.

I'm confused, what do you mean by 1x12's? I'm sorry for not understanding! I saw your cage in the FN thread and love the big shelves you have in. How thick are they? The biggest shelves I'm getting will be 11 1/2in x 24in and the other will be 10in x 24in, hopefully they have a board big enough so I won't have to buy two. Hm, I think I'm starting to over think this all!
 
1 inch thick, 12 in wide and if you get a board 4 ft long they will cut it in half making two shelves for you...each one will be 1" thick, 12"wide for the chin to sit on, and 2ft in length. If they don't have a board only 4 ft in length (not much call for that) get an 8 ft one and you will have 4 shelves. They do get stained and smelly after a few months. Do you understand now? PS the wood does shrink a little so yes....all the true dimensions are a little bit less
 
Thanks so much for clearning that up, I understand now :) Heh I definitely was over thinking it all, I really appreciate the help!
 
Thanks so much for clearning that up, I understand now :) Heh I definitely was over thinking it all, I really appreciate the help!

I use 1x8s or 1x6s (depending on what part of the cage I am on (I use wider boards at the top) and Flea never never has problems with balance or anything. Whatever board you buy will be slightly narrower and thinner than the number (due to planing and drying) so make sure you think about your board thickness when you get mounting hardware (getting mounting hardware that is too big will splinter the wood and accentuate any mistakes you make in drilling them in). If you want to get some 1x1 pieces to make backstops (poopguards that can just be glued on to the back side of the shelf), then I recommend 1x8s so you don't lose as much shelf.
 
I go to Home Depot, they will cut each board up to 6 times for free. The board that I got was 8 ft long and a 1x10 (which is about 1 inch by 10 inches, but they measure before kiln drying). We had measured out that we needed the shelves to be 17 inches long for front to back in the cage, and 28 inches from side to side. We got 4-17 inch boards cut and one 28 inch board cut from the 8ft long board. We used hangar bolts (by the picture framing supplies), wing nuts and fender washers to hang them. Those are all cheaper if you buy them in a package rather than individually. The washers were in a pack of 12, the wing nuts in packs of 6 and the bolts in packs of 4. There was a guy in the nuts and bolts aisle that helped us match them all together to make sure we had the right sizes. The cost for everything was about $15 for one cage.
 
I went to Home Depot today and found exactly what I was looking for! I ended up buying two boards with diffrent widths and getting a ton of shelves/ledges out of them. The wood costed about $15, but with the extra hardware I need, it'll probably total at about $20-$25. The guy let us get all the wood cut for free!

Gorilla, I had the same thought about the wood splitting. I usually drill in a pilot hole (if that's the right word to use) before I screw in the hanger bolt. I'm not sure if that would crack the wood or not, or if it's even necessary to do in the first place. What do you think? Pine is soft, so I'm sure I could manage with a couple of wing nuts and a pair of pliers, but driling first is a lot easier. I'm just worried about ruining a ledge or something over a simple mistake.

How did you all decide where to put your shelves/ledges at? Did you plan everything out so your chin can have the easiest access to each shelve/ledge or just put everything in and let your chin figure it out? Again, I'm totally overthinking this all. I need to hire someone to be my interior chin designer ;)
 
I always buy then cut at home as I have a table saw (as well as a miter and jig). That said, it's the hardware usually that is killer.

For instance, I can purchase a 1"x8" by 6foot length board locally for around $4. However, when I bring it home and cut it into 3 shelves (each 2 feet in length) I then add the hardware. NOW, I use hanger bolts (screw on one side, bolt on the other) wing nuts and fender washers. For each shelf I need at least 3 of each assuming the board will touch 3 sides of the cage...and each piece (hanger bolt, wingnut, washer) costs roughly 25cents. SO, add $2.25 in hardware PER shelf and you wind up with a total of $4 for the board...$6.75 for the hardware and a grand total of $10.75 for three 2foot shelves!

ETA- I use 1/4" hanger bolts, I always pilot the holes because that IS a pretty wide hole considering the boards are only 1" thick. Furthermore, the bolts being that thick it'd be pretty difficult to turn them in w/o pilot holes AND you'd risk damaging the threads on the bolt with either the nut or the pliers so what I always do:

Put a piece of black tape on the drill bit for the depth I want to drill. Drill the hole to the black tape. Put a regular nut on the hanger bolt, put the wingnut on and tighten the two nuts together...THEN I turn the hanger bolt into the hole with my hand usually. Remove the wingnut, remove the regular nut, put the washer on then the wingnut back on! Voila!
 
Last edited:
Thanks so much for the information, Vyxxin! The wood wasn't too bad of a price, but you're right, the hardware is a killer. I managed to get most of the hanger bolts out of the old shelves and reuse them, but some of the wingnuts and hanger bolts got stuck together so I couldn't use them. I had no idea I bought so many of each peice though, ouch. Do they sell packs of washers, wingnuts, or hanger bolts? I havn't seen any at Ace, but I'm thinking they would be cheaper then buying each one at a time.
 
Actually, buying by the piece is cheaper here (I do buy at ACE). I imgine if you purchased a large amount in bulk it could get cheaper...but I buy as needed so ;) I just made two cages (will be posting pics this week at some point) and had to buy all the hardware for the pine...I'm thinking there's PROBABLY someplace online that sells all of the above cheaper...hmmm...
 
I redid her cage last night, I think she really likes it! She keeps waking up just to jump around on all the new shelves. I thought I'd share and see what you guys think. If anything needs to be moved or changed around, please do say!

Please excuse the mess and bad pictures!

Poor thing sat like this the whole time hehe
Picture210.jpg


Whole cage
Picture219.jpg


Top
Picture215.jpg


Bottom
Picture216.jpg


I think she likes it!
Picture221.jpg
 
Back
Top