help me find book cases for LOTS of heavy books

[3bookworms]

We have a book problem: 1000s of heavy hardbacks, and the shelves are now collapsing on the big ikea bookcases (don't make them any more, quite strong, sronger than 'Billy') that we've had for 10+ years.

We are moving house soon and need to replace them as we have a toddler and the whole set up is getting scarily precarious. Ideally we need built-in shelving, but are renting for at least another year so can't do that yet. Can't put the books in storage either.

So, what we need is:

large, strong book cases with fixed shelves /strong fixings that will take heavy books, ideally not massively expensive as we are broke, but we would invest in decent ones if we had to. We need about 6 2m x 1m ish.

Does anyone know of anything that would work?

Have you looked at the IKEA Hemnes bookcases?
They are solid wood so should be stronger than Billy (which I agree are not very robust) but not too expensive.
I have used other Hemnes things and the quality is good though not the bookcases so I cant vouch for them personally.

Thanks I hadn't seen these. I do like the look of them (and the price is good). But i find the problem with ikea bookcases we've had before is the fixings for the movable shelves aren't strong enough to take the weight of a shelf of hardbacks, which is why im probably looking for fixed ones (within the freestanding bookcase i mean) Hope that makes sense

Yes that makes sense.
I would have thought you could fix the shelves yourself though which might make them stronger.
Solid pine bookcases are another option and not usually too pricey - I think they usually have fixed shelves.
Look in your local pine shops.

Maybe try second hand furniture shops.

You can secure a bookcase to the wall with a don'tknowwhattocallit that screws into the back of the bookcase and then the second part screws into the wall.

We invested in a couple of Habitat bookcases when we were in the same position. We have two from the Kuda range. They are not cheap, but thy are very strong. Ours hold hardback books with ease. We've owned them for about 8 years and they still look like new.

Thanks all for the advice - I think the habitat ones could be the thing - I'll have to get saving, and will hold out until they do one of their 20%+ off deals. I basically need to line a living room with lots of them as we won't have much space, so they need to be massive, strong and all the same! Our house always feels like a (messy, noisy) library, not in a good way. Trying to start a 1-in-1-out policy - for books not readers :-)

I would get a local carpenter to make some special ones for you. It will work out a lot cheaper in the end.