Home projects: the good, the bad, the ugly
Friday, July 17, 2020 at 06:16AM It's an itch.
Possibly exacerbated by boredom.
A few extra dollars left over at the end of the month.
LEGO deprivation as a child.
Maybe a mental illness.
Anyway, I decided my rarely used home office in the second bedroom needed a make over.
The photo above is the "before." Sagging, overcrowded shelves in ancient pressed-wood, mismatched bookcases. Black work table, brown shelves. Broken slats in window blinds. Tacky display of plaques and framed certificates. Unseen is an old futon bed too large for the room on the opposite wall.
Functional, but ugly.
So, off to IKEA. Will I never learn?
After careful measurement of my existing space, I selected two new bookcases at the local IKEA store after waiting 40 minutes just to enter. Loaded the heavy SOBs into my little Honda Fit along with a separate shelf and brackets (and a case of needed wine from Trader Joe's). Only minor back sprain. I unboxed in the garage and carried a few pieces at a time upstairs to my office.
As I am sure many readers know, IKEA products are sort of adult LEGO sets. You put them together yourself using visual instructions.
If you look closely, among the first instructions is to have two people working on the assembly. Fat chance. The instructions should also say:
- Don't put together at the end of the day when you are tired.
- Don't put together in a hot room.
- Don't put together while drinking wine.
- Don't put together if you are not handy.
- Have bandages close at hand.
I have found that the first rule of putting any furniture together, IKEA or other, is that if when you put a piece in the wrong way, it will always be among the very first pieces. This means that when you eventually discover the mistake, always at the very end of the assembly, you will need to carefully take apart the entire piece, correct the error, then put it all back together again, praying you have not lost any critical nuts, bolts, screws, nails, or do-hickeys.
After putting the first set of shelves together twice, the second set of shelves was much easier. Possibly because I waited until the next morning to tackle the construction.
The downside of waiting was that I lost sleep worrying about whether the shelves would actually fit the wall space I had. Yes, I measured, but it was going to be very, very tight. I strategised, sleepless at 3am, about removing molding at the bottom of the wall, planing away some of my work table, etc. But the furniture gods were smiling, and the pieces all fit.
The finished product. Don't look too close. But I like it. The colors now match. Books don't have to be turned on their spines to fit. The plaques are not so glaring. I gave the futon bed to a neighbor, along with one of the old bookcases, and bought a small sleeper sofa that actually fits on the opposite wall for company.
The itch has been scratched.
But I am getting the urge to replace my front door lock with one of those keyless touch pad thingies. Where's my screwdriver? I'll let you know how it turns out. If I can get back in the house.
Reader Comments (2)
Congratulations! I recently worked on my bookshelves also. I have wonderful 10 feet high wooden bookshelves that my father made me about 40 years ago and I've had them in every house I've lived in since. Of course the shelves were spaced so far apart that I've had to stack books on their side on top of the books that were on the shelf correctly. This led to a huge mess of books and looked terrible. Finally I went to Lowes and got 4 shelves cut. This means I had to go through all of my books and get rid of books that either were outdated textbooks or ones I have no idea why I had then. I now have nice looking shelves with books all stored the way they should. I was able to find books that I want to read again. I hope you felt the sense of accomplishment that I felt when I was finished.
Hi Pat,
One thing this project did was remind me that I have a lot of old VHS family movies to get converted to digital. Always something. I did a good book weeding when I moved into my smaller home a few years ago. That IS a good feeling.
Take care,
Doug