The Saga of the Bookcase

Fair warning: this really isn't a saga. I admit nothing and promise less. (But you should all be used to that by now...)

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, the War Department's office is also our guest room (as our friend from Toronto* found out over the Labor Day weekend). This means that in addition to her desk and files and whatnot, the War Department has to share the room with a rather large bed. There are also two large windows and a closet - meaning there is precious little floor space against the walls she can use to put a bookcase or even a chair. As a matter of fact, there aren't even that many walls on which to hang pictures or artwork.

The solution was to find a bookcase to hang on the wall beside the bed to give her a little extra storage and display space. The problem with the solution (oh, you knew this was coming) is that bookcases just simply don't come in the precise dimensions we wanted. Which meant that, if we wanted something that was nice and would fit where we wanted it to go, we would have to build it ourselves.

Fortunately, I actually have built bookcases (well, one) before, so once we had the overall size of the thing figured out, it was off to Home Despot to pick up the lumber.

Now, I COULD (and probably should) bore the crap out of you with all the little details about making the bookcase. In fact, maybe I will. After all, making it was something of an endurance test for me, so why shouldn't reading about it be just as much of an endurance test for you, hmm? Only without the distinct possibility of sawing off one of your fingertips on the table saw. Unless, you know, you were trying to stay awake.

Right, so, as always, the issues started with buying materials. In fact, there were several mistakes made when selecting the materials. First, I bought the wrong plywood. No seriously. I mean, I blame the War Department, at least partially, because she was with me and didn't notice that we were buying good-one-side plywood, rather than the good-two-sides that we actually needed. Not that it was THAT big a deal, really, it just meant more sanding, but what really compounded the mistake was buying twice as much as we actually needed. (Looks like I'll be building another bookcase at some point, I guess.)

Anyway, along with the plywood we bought some trim to finish off the face of the bookcase to hide the edges of the plywood. We bought the right stuff, at least... and too much of it. (So I guess the next bookcase will likely have the same trim? Yeah. That's it.) Again, I blame Amy - she knows I'm not so good at math.

Then we took all the materials home, put them in the garage, and left them there for a couple of weeks. You know, to acclimatize. Or something.

When I finally got off my ass long enough to get started, I drew a careful diagram of the pieces I'd need, realized we'd bought too much plywood, swore, and then set about marking out the pieces on the plywood. I made all my markings, set up the fence for the circular saw, double-checked the width of the saw guide, locked everything down, and cut the first piece (the largest piece) approximately 3/32 of an inch too short.

When I finished swearing, I double-checked to make sure the War Department hadn't heard me, and quickly checked all my other measurements to make sure that it would all still work. Fortunately, I had cut it too short - too long, and I would have had to start over with the back-up piece of plywood. So, good thing we had it, right? Right?

Anyway, the rest of the cuts went okay, although I had a devil of a time figuring out the placement of the shelves and had to measure everything about eight times before I got it right. You see, the design called for a 3-foot by 6-foot unit, 7 inches deep, with 9 little cubby holes. I really wanted everything to line up nicely, but because I had cut the first pieces too short, I had to recalculate the placement of the center shelves. (Heh, the best part is that I don't think Amy actually knows any of this yet. She thinks the shelf is 6" x 3", but it's actually closer to 71 5/8" by 35 7/8". Hee hee!)

Then I got to start putting it together:

Once the initial pieces were good and bonded, I could start adding trim:

And yes, the trim overlaps on the bottom of the bookcase so you can slide books off the shelves without having to lift them, It also helps to conceal the wood we attached to the wall to help hold the whole thing in place. I also added edge trim to cover up the faces of the interior shelves. Which, of course, was slightly bigger than the plywood and thus had to be sanded down.

Somehow I completely failed to take a picture of the sanding and painting process. Which is particularly weird considering how unbelievable tedious and lengthy the process was. I had to sand the whole thing with three grits of sandpaper, fill the holes, sand again, prime, sand the grain down again, fill the cracks and holes I missed the first time, sand again, paint, sand the grain down again, and then paint AGAIN. And then, of course, we had to figure out how to attach it to the wall.

But, and I say this with all due humility, I think it looks pretty damn good:

Yes, we probably overdid it with the brackets, but there will be people sleeping there some day. And not just friends from Toronto, damn it. People we actually like.**


*Hi Gillian!

** I kid. Gill's the absolute bomb, and the best house guest you could ask for. Seriously - I'll send her over. You'll like her. She's awesome.