kerravonsen | A Tale of Two B'Cases (Reply)

The saga of the bookcases continues...

After sonking around a bit, I actually got myself together and set to work on the pine bookcase, the plan being to put it together and then put another coat of varnish on it after that. However, that was easier said than done. I simply didn't have the brute force needed to screw the screws in. I got in two out of four. And as I sat there gloomily contemplating whether I should make another trip to Bunnings myself, to either buy a better screwdriver, or a drill, who should I see passing by on the road outside but my parents going for a walk. So I dashed out to say hi, and mentioned my problem, and dad said he'd come by later and help.

That problem being deferred, I unscrewed the screws and put the pieces aside, and then I tackled the black bookcase, which, being chipboard as (a) heavier but (b) easier to screw screws into (or else they'd just done a better job drilling the guide-holes). The main thing I had trouble with was the backing bits, which wouldn't stay joined together; and later, after I'd put it all together, I realized I'd gotten the joining strip the wrong way around. Oh well. C'est la vie. I wasn't going to unhammer the nails to fix it up.

Then I had to decide where to put it, as it had suddenly occurred to me yesterday that maybe I should put it in the front hall rather than the hallway, as there was more room in the front hall. But I didn't really want my fiction to be quite that far away from my bedroom, besides not really wanting people to oogle my books as their first act on stepping into the house. I finally decided to put it in the hallway opposite the bathroom, so that the light from the bathroom could shine nicely on the books (as well as giving the illusion of more room).

So.
Then to start putting books into it, or to be more precise, to start reshelving books into it. My shelving categories are thus: fiction, non-fiction, fan fiction and tall books. However the fiction wavers between being separated into paperbacks and hardbacks, or having them mixed together, and that all depends on the size of the shelves they're being put on. Since this new black bookcase has shelves tall enough for hardbacks, I'm going to try blending the paperbacks and hardbacks together (at least until that bookcase gives out).

But I decided that, if I was going to be reshelving books anyway, I might as well take the opportunity to (a) blend in the unread books (b) winnow the unreadable books (c) catalogue them.
So I did.
I got the A's done, anyway. And started on the B's.

A bit after 5pm I rang up Mum & Dad, wondering where they'd got to, and got their answering machine. But not much later, Dad rang to say they'd just gotten in, and he'd be around soon. He arrived bearing screwdrivers, but he had almost as much trouble as I did, so it wasn't just me, it was this cheap bookcase. After much effort, we got half of it done, with promises to continue tomorrow, this time with a drill.

Then I went over for dinner, bearing roo steak which Dad managed to cook up quite deliciously despite his fear that he'd get it all wrong because he hadn't cooked roo before.