First off I want to state that I am not responsible for any damage or injury which may occur from assembling or using a cabinet like this. There is a lot of glass here so be careful.

A few years ago I spend a long time looking something nice to store and display my growing puzzle collection. I looked at curio cabinets but found them to typically cost much more than I wanted to spend. Also, they would only have a small number of shelves with a lot of space between them. Puzzles are typically small so I didn’t need so much empty space and I really wanted to avoid stacking puzzles.

Then I discovered Ikea.

I use the following from Ikea:

Billy Bookcase, Black
Billy Morebo Glass Door (X2)
Billy Extra Shelf, Glass (as many as you want, I used 14)
Dioder LED Multi-use Light, White

After unpacking the bookcase I put aside the 5 included shelves (4 adjustable and 1 fixed). I don’t use them for this since I have the glass shelves. I’m still playing around with ideas for what to do with them. As you can see, the sides of the bookcase have a large number of holes for the adjustable shelves but they don’t run all the way, there are gaps between each section where they assume someone would place a shelf as well as large areas at the top and bottom without any holes.

I want more freedom for shelf placement so I added more holes.

For the lights I identify the top piece and measure out where I want to place them. I then mount the small plastic brackets and drill holes through the top piece for the wiring so that it is out of sight.

Next I assemble the bookshelf following Ikea’s instructions with the exception of the fixed center shelf, I don’t use it.

Here you can see the wiring for the lights coming out of the top piece. I use some tape to help keep the wiring out of the way as well as cover the holes.

Since the back piece of the bookcase is just painted cardboard pre-folded in 3 sections it tends to want to flex a lot. This is more of an issue for me since I am not using the fixed center shelf which the back piece would normally be nailed to. So what I do to help is fold up some pieces of cardboard (from the packaging) so that it is 4 layers thick and tape it to the back. When the bookcase is placed against a wall these cardboard pieces will prevent the flexible back pieces from being pushed back which could possible pop it out of the slots in the side pieces.

This is a tall bookcase which will have heavy glass doors mounted to it so I use the included bracket to anchor it to the wall. In my new house the room I am placing it in has a drop ceiling which is not much higher than the top of the bookcase so I used the drop ceiling brackets for my anchor point.

For unknown reasons Ikea puts stickers on the glass shelves even though they are sold wrapped in cardboard with all the product identification labels and bar codes on the cardboard. Some Goo Gone and Windex will help remove them. After installing the shelves and mounting the doors I like to use Windex Wipes to remove fingerprints.

To be continued...

If your collection is anything like mine, more than 1 cabinet may be necessary. Here is where I ran into a bit of a snag. Notice that the lights for the new cabinet (the one on the right) are different than the ones for my older cabinets. For unknown reasons Ikea changed their Dioder lights from white to “warm white”. The first thing I did after discovering this was jump online to find out of mine were faulty but I found out that Ikea changed manufactures sometime this past year and they are all like this now. I jumped on the usual places (Amazon, eBay, Craig’s List) in search of some older “true white” ones but had no luck. But now I’m actually starting to like the new ones more than the old as they are closer to the light color from the lighting in my room. I may eventually replace the lights in the 2 older cabinets with these new “warm white” ones.

Finally I spent 2 days unpacking my puzzles into their new home.

A potential future modification I would like to make would be to replace the back pieces with mirrors but I’m not sure if they is really feasible or practical. I do think it would look nice. I may also add more lights, especially for the lower sections but I would need to figure out how to mount them and hide the wiring.

Finally here are some close-up pictures of my collection:

Thanks for the photos. What is that in the last one in front of the rubik's tiles?

With the drill showing in picture #4, it looks like you accidentally gouged the wood with the drill. Then I realized it was a wire. Very nice assembly, though. Hopefully you bought an extra bookcase or two for future [inevitable] expansion!

Thanks for sharing!

I'm going to show my wife - she might actually forgive the size of my collection after seeing yours! Unfortunately there's no way she would let me have the display cabinets! They look fab but no chance of me getting them!

Thank you for sharing your idea and the photos!
Your solution seems much less expensive than my cabinets made out of acryl glass.
May I ask how much you have paid for the three shelves altogether?

(I like mine too and for the Europeans: I have bought them at http://www.sora.de
I've got three more for Christmas and have still to mount them.)

Billy for the win! I also have a Billy I believe (with them stickers on the wood shelves ), they are great for this sort of thing. Mine is muuuuuch smaller though *giggle*

Congrats on the great job, it looks fantastic!

Is this the one you are talking about? It is the 2 sided plastic 9 tile version of Rubik's Tangle. Behind it I have the 15 tile cardboard versions of sets 1, 2, and 4. I'm still looking for set 3.

My wife has already asked me how long it will be before a 4th cabinet shows up. I just smiled...

We recently got an Ikea, but before that I used something-or-other from either HomeSense or Home Outfitters (I think, can't remember which). They are big cabinets with four glass sides (clear plastic on the corners to hold it all together) and are beech-colored. The only problem is that they are *very* difficult to assemble.

I also considered the Billy bookshelves (and the Expedit) but I found that, as with my larger shelves, the puzzles would tend to get 'lost' in the unit - either the units would look empty with too few small puzzles on them (and I would need too many units) or else they would look crowded with too many.

My solution was to have the big glass ones for the larger puzzles and some Ikea Benno CD towers for the small ones. I don't have any 'populated' pictures, however I found that one CD tower shelf is just large enough to comfortably hold a standard 57 mm puzzle or several Hanayamas. The disadvantage to the Bennos is that they don't have doors, but for display they work particularly well. They also have many different shelf height options (again, unlike those glass shelves that I use but can't find online) so you can customize. Everything is nicely visible if the lighting conditions are right, but if there is on direct light shining on them you get a lot of shadow which obscures the puzzles.

I love this Idea a lot more then Sandy display because of a lot more room(No offense taken I hope). How much weight can the one Glass shelf hold? Are three lights enough to light the whole display of puzzles that are on each shelf? I had a thought. I would put one light on each of the inside wall (not the back wall) be to display better or be to much or just right or don't need them?

Your thoughts?

According to Ikea's web site the glass shelves can hold 22 lb (10 kg). The lights do a great job for the puzzles towards the top of the cabinets but not so good for the bottom ones. Part of the problems is that even though the shelves are glass all the puzzles on the shelves block the light from reaching the lower levels.

As you can see the new "warm white" lights in the right cabinet actually do a better job than the older ones. I would like to add some lights to help with the lower levels but I'm not sure what to do. I have thought about running LED light strips down the sides behind the doors but there isn't much room.

Nice cabinets and very nice collection!

Your idea with mirrors in the back might be good to add to add some more "virtual" puzzles, but I think that a fourth display cabinet might be the next logical step. A common problem for puzzle collectors ...

I agree that the 'warm' effect lights let off a much nicer colour. You could always consider adding LED bars further down if you wanted to light up the lower levels of the cabinet as well.

What is the number of your puzzles, how big your collection?