So, we moved into the new house permanently over a year ago. I have all my books, CDs, DVDs, etc. boxed up still. My library. Or at least the half of my library that survived the move. They’ve been sitting in their boxes in my loft above the garage all this time, just waiting to be unboxed.
Part of the problem is that the loft over the garage is built under an A-frame roof, meaning the walls are at a ridiculous angle, which cuts down on the usable space in the room. This leads to the other problem in that my old bookcases won’t fit in the room very well.
What I really need are long, low bookcases that will fit in the two to three foot space where the slanted roof and the regular wall meet. I’ve thought about making my own, but wood prices are still crazy high right now.
In my search for alternatives, I somehow ended up on this YouTube video about making things out of cardboard. I have to say, it is very appealing to me. I have a ton of cardboard boxes from the move, plus the ones my books are sitting in. I don’t want to just throw them away, and I like the idea of being able to recycle them this way. Plus, I like making things, especially from paper.
I’ve made a few test pieces of construction material from some cardboard boxes, gluing them together with wheat paste, like the video says to do. They seem fairly sturdy to me, and I think I could make some bookcases using the technique.
I’ve learned a few things from making the test pieces.
1) It takes a lot longer than you think to cut up the boxes.
2) A little wheat paste goes a very long way. I ended up having to throw about half of mine away because it was taking so long to cut up the boxes in my limited amount of time that the wheat paste was starting to go bad.
3) You have to be patient because it takes a while to let the wheat paste dry and stick the cardboard pieces together.
4 The pieces of cardboard you end up with are never as big as you think they will be. I imagine I’ll need bigger pieces to make some long bookshelves.
All of that brings us to today.
The wife wanted to get out and about because it was a beautiful day, weatherwise. I have to say that was a good call on her part. She suggested we go out to eat lunch. We went to a favorite Chinese place and had a nice lunch.
Then the wife want to “go do things”. That usually means shopping. I don’t mind going out, but I like to have a definitive plan when I do so. I don’t like randomly moving from place to place on a whim. We went out to several shops, looking for things to decorate the new house with. I was not terribly happy with this turn of events.
Finally she said “let’s go to Goodwill.” Great. More shopping. Well, at least they have some books. I could at least browse and see if I could find a good read to add to my library.
When we got in she wanted to head directly to the furniture. What? Like we need another end table or something?
When we got to the furniture area there happened to be two long, low bookshelves! They are a little odd, as the shelves are slanted relative to the floor. Still, they’ll hold books. The wife was good enough to buy them for me. Thank you, wife!
It was difficult getting them home as they didn’t fit in the car. We had to drive home with the hatch open and the bookcases hanging out the back of the car. Nor did I have any ties to anchor them in the car. I was trusting that they were big and heavy enough that they wouldn’t slide out of the back on the way home. Fortunately, they didn’t.
I manhandled them out of the car and into the garage. I’m going to need help getting them into the loft, as lifting them is a two-person job. But that’s for another day.
New bookshelves! Caliwandalous! Now I’ll just get lost for days blissfully unboxing my books and arranging them on the shelves.
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