Bookcase Progress part 2

WHEE! I have a bookcase! It is almost finished, but as it is now, I can put books on it!

So... what did we do? Well, I didn't read anywhere near as much as I was hoping over my holiday. In fact, I read less than I usually do while working! But, you don't want to hear that. Let me get on with the bookcase!

 After we managed to get the perfectly square base set against a particularly non-square or straight wall (that took effort, folks. Imagine trying to put a square in a circle.) we then started putting the actually bookcase part together. We assembled it sideways, working from the corner to the doorway. It took us an entire day to do two sections because, with the risk of repeating myself, the lack of straight lines just made everything so darned difficult. Both my mom and I wanted it to look perfect, and that meant that we didn't want gaps behind the bookcase. The other delay was that it was ever so slightly a bit heavy.

As you can see on the left, we would screw the shelves into the upright and then raise it. Next, we would screw the shelves into the next upright and raise it too. One of us would hold the thing up, while the other would screw like crazy.

I am now an expert at screwing. (Oi! You have a dirty mind!) Pine is not the softest of woods out there and screws don't just land in the right place. We drilled holes in the uprights for the screws, but they went into the shelves without. I was convinced at one point that I would be returning to work with one arm looking like The Hulk's, and the other as normal as ever.

The second day of assembly went so much better. By then, the only thing we were concerned about was that all the tweaking we had had to do would have moved the top piece beyond the edge of the base. Thank Merlin that was not the case. This project started to resemble Mark Watney's time on Mars...

 In case you are wondering how we got the shelves level, you will note that only every other shelf is screwed in. The others rest on clear plastic shelf pegs. I did not want my shelves uneven and the method we had thought of to get it that way without pegs would have required Gummyberry juice, radio active toxic waste dips and a stretch on a non-deserted island filled with danger. In other words, strength to the point where one might wonder if magic was involved. So we didn't do that in the end - obviously.

The first night, I emptied all my bookcases and planted books. I started off trying out the rainbow effect, because I have always thought it looked pretty although I knew it would drive me nuts as far as organisation goes. That lasted until I was too tired, and then they were just put there. This was to clear my other, older bookcases. I then broke those down and, between my mom and I, we stripped off the old paint and redid them. I can't say that they are now in the most logical place in my room, but at least I can now get to all my books (and sleep without the security light on my neighbour's house shining directly in my window at night).

You are probably wondering why I am saying that the bookcase is almost finished. Well, the top pieces that go up against the ceiling must still go in, and the part that goes above the door must still be done. We didn't want to cut the wood until we knew for certain exactly the size we would need (I refer you back to the issues with putting squares in circles and my walls not being straight. They look like brackets actually.) I will probably save that for a long weekend (one is coming up next month) or the next holiday.

Now I need to sort out my books and revert back to my more comfortable alphabetical arrangement.