The Library

Well since I was talking about it in yesterdays post, and since today I finished the rough assembly of the last of 7 bookcases that we'll be putting in the basement, I thought I'd share my progress so far with you.

It all began when my wife and I decided that we wanted to get some bookcases for our smallest basement room. We took a quick run down the street to our local furniture dealer. We looked around and got an idea of what it was that we (she) wanted and what they would cost. Once buying enough to fill the area that we wanted to fill was out of the question (It would have cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $2100.00), we decided that I'd try to replicate as best I could the cases that we had decided on. That's them in the catalog picture that we modeled our cabinets after.

So I drew up some plans that I think should be pretty solid, yet not look it. (That's my biggest shortfall in carpentry; building too solid, to where they look utilitarian rather than like furniture you'd want to display.) I was pretty nervous when I got ready to start this project. I always feel like the more ambitious my projects become, I'll eventually overstep my abilities, but A~ has faith in me so I try my best. Anyway, I purchased the MDF board that I planned to build it with, and made the good decision to have the board ripped at the store. They have the proper equipment to do the job much more consistantly that I do and if you've ever tried to rip 4x8 sheets of plywood on a home-use sized table saw you know it's not fun. I spent the next week and a half or so a little at a time cutting and prepping boards for assembly. Basically I was getting the pieces for the cabinets trimmed, drilled for screws and all the small connecting pieces to a state similar to when you buy the furniture in a box that needs assembly.

Last weekend my Dad came out on Sunday to watch the Superbowl and helped me in the morning with assembling some of the bookcases. I was able to get another couple done through the week and today, as I said, I finished the rough assembly of the last two. Here's where I'm at so far. You can start to see how they mimic the style of the ones from the store. Today we also made it to the hardware store to pick up some moulding that we're going to place over the seams after the cases are in place to give them the effect of looking like one solid built in unit.

All told I think they'll end up looking pretty good. When you factor in the fact that we'll only be into them about $550 - $600.00 compared to the projected $2100.00 and they certainly start to look even better! I'll make sure to post a couple of pics of them when they're all finished and in place. Should be another couple of weeks since we're planning on prepping through this week, and painting next weekend. Then with some finish work, and moving them down the stairs and we should be able to be finished by the weekend of the 24th, just in time to start building my new chickens home. The work of the faithful do-it-yerselfer is never finished. These home projects are one of those things that I never necessarily look forward to, but always begin to enjoy while I'm in the middle of it, and am immensly proud of when I'm finished.
Doing this type of work and building things to meet our needs is sort of my equivilent to my wifes baking our bread, or cooking from scratch. It gives us the ability to live at a level that we otherwise may not be able to if we did things like everyone else and bought everything we needed premade. It's a big part of what makes us succesful on a single income, and something I hope we can pass on to our boys. I watched it in my father to a great degree, I remember him putting bookshelves up in their master bedroom, and fixing things until they just couldn't be fixed any more. It's not the easiest way, but I realy do believe that it is the best way for us. You never know what your capable of till you try.

P~