Shelf life...

I spent most of this past weekend doing a "home improvement" project that involved bookshelves. My main set of bookshelves have been slowly dying over the past couple of years, victims of an over-zealous book collector who kept loading them down with heavy books and other paraphernalia. (That would be ME.) One day last week I woke up to a top shelf at an extreme downward angle, with the books perilously close to sliding off, which, I imagined, would have a domino effect with the shelves below. It was time.

I've had these shelves for almost 28 years. I bought them when I moved upstairs in my Academy Ave. apartment in Mt. Lebanon, PA, back near Pittsburgh. That was 1984. They made the trip west with me in '98 (yes, via covered wagon, smart-ass), but at some point--when I downsized into a smaller apartment in my current building--I got rid of two of them, so I was down to four from six. Those four bore the brunt of my book collection for the past 10 years or so.

Say what you will about city living, but all you have to do--most times--is stick something outside your door and put a FREE! sign on it and it'll disappear pretty quick. I became the gift that kept on giving for a few nights as, one-by-one, I placed my old shelves outside in the hall, and--abra cadabra!--they disappeared. I trust they found a good home.

So on Friday I ventured out to the magical land of IKEA (thank god I didn't run into that Salander bitch) and bought six new big bookshelves and here is where life got at least a little interesting (you were praying for that to happen while reading this, weren't you, dear reader?). IKEA delivers for a fee and it was totally worth it this time out, since the shelves were way too big to fit into my car. Best of all, I bought them at 1:00pm and they were at my door at 5:00pm delivering them. And that's when I started building.

All five shelves built. Now comes the hard part...putting all the damn books back on 'em!

But disaster struck with shelf #5...when I opened the box, one of the side-pieces had a huge crack in it. My friend Kimberly--who I was having lunch with that day--gallantly stepped up to the plate and helped me load the heavy MF of a box in her SUV (that's my favorite Law & Order show, by the way) and we took it back, and lo and behold, here's where fate lent a hand and the story gets its semi-happy ending: I underestimated the size--and monolithic effect--of the shelves while at IKEA (plus the amount of shelf-space I actually needed for books). So having one out of the six bookshelves turn out to be damaged was actually a small kindness bestowed on me by the book gods.

So, four days later--and three more trips to IKEA (I gotta buy stock in that store)--I'm pretty much done. The total effect actually makes the apartment seem bigger to me (I thought the opposite would be true), I think because of the long stretch of uninterrupted shelf space now. I have some room to grow. I also invested in a new bedside shelf unit and a new table lamp. All in all, I came in under budget, too, so I think it's high time I get one of them TV shows on HG or some such cable netlet.

The bottom line? Besides keeping me off the streets and away from drugs and hookers (my normal weekend pasttimes), you mean? It's just another small (well, not so small, I guess) home improvement that makes me like the place more and more. Here's what it looks like in its finished form:

I still have a little tweaking to do (no, that's not a drug reference), but I'm pretty happy with it. And you know me...happy is my middle f*cking name.

Comments

[Laurel]

So happy you are happy.
Nice job Gar.

[Kitchen Encounters]

That looks really, really nice! And you are correct, it makes the room look really, really large!

[Angela]

I think Salander mostly buys her IKEA accoutrement online these days.