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This weekend we finally got around to getting some new bookshelves.
We have vast quantities of books in our collection, many of which neither of us have read. Nicole is more dedicated to reading the books she buys, but I'm more interested in just acquiring them. I do plan to read them all, eventually, however unrealistic that may be.
Anyway, after my last reshelving, there was a lot of overflow. I like to keep all my paperbacks in alphabetical order by author, so after enough new acquisitions I have to insert them and shift everything else down. Nicole's romances are sorted separately, and they form most of the overflow right now. And we're due for another reshelving, too.
The biggest reason we hadn't gotten them before was simply lack of space. Our bookshelves are in one of our basement rooms, the "futon room"(it's also got a futon in the middle, you see), covering most of the walls. Most of one corner was taken up by boxes containing our old computers--the 486 I had before this one, and another one that's older still. Only one monitor, because we gave one to Nicole's brother a few years ago.
On Saturday I found the impetus to at least shove all the boxes into the room's closet. This is nontrivial, because it has sliding doors that don't open very far, and I had to shove each box in sideways and then maneuver it into a position where I could get another box in after it. But I did it. Now there was actually room for more shelves. We figured that, by this time, we probably needed two.
We were going to try to give the computers to someplace for recycling, but we never got around to it, so into the closet they go. Maybe when we next move.
Still feeling full of gumption, I headed out to actually try to buy the shelves. We've been talking about this for weeks now, but it wasn't something we felt we could do with the kids in the car(they'd be squashed!), so it would involve one of us going out solo. And the Jeep looked like it would have more room anyway.
I checked Canadian Tire, where we'd seen some nice 6-foot shelves, but they only had five shelves on them. Most of the ones we have now have six shelves, and I wasn't willing to settle for only five. I went to Office Depot, where I remembered buying some very nice shelves before, but they had the same models as Canadian Tire...so I went back to CT, where they at least had extra shelves for sale as well. (I'd wanted to try Ikea too, but the store that used to be on Calgary Trail and Whitemud Drive has apparently moved, probably to South Edmonton Common...and I didn't want to face the Common on a Saturday afternoon.)
At Canadian Tire, with the help of a "customer assistance" guy, I loaded the boxed shelves into the Jeep. There wasn't as much room as I'd thought--they basically went right down between the front seats, about a foot from the dashboard. My right elbow was a little cramped, it was hard to shift, and the boxes slid forward if I stopped too suddenly...but I arrived home without mishap. I had to back into the driveway, which didn't go as well as it might have, because I'm not an experience backward parker, and the side mirrors on the Jeep suck mightily. I did get a couple of wheels into the neighbour's yard, but at least the hole the utilities people dug a few months ago has been filled in.
The shelves proper are a little bit different than I remember the last batch being. The last ones had some kind of cam arrangement to attach the fixed shelves...these ones have a hidden screw that you have to tighten with your screwdriver at an angle, and it wasn't that fun. One of them's done, anyway, or mostly. I still have two more shelves to put in, plus we have to someday drill a hole to put the extra shelf into. (Which it looks like is actually an inch or two too short...but I didn't have a lot of choice of sizes.) And then, of course, the fun part(and I mean that non-ironically)--actually putting the books on the shelves. That will make it all worthwhile.
We have vast quantities of books in our collection, many of which neither of us have read. Nicole is more dedicated to reading the books she buys, but I'm more interested in just acquiring them. I do plan to read them all, eventually, however unrealistic that may be.
Anyway, after my last reshelving, there was a lot of overflow. I like to keep all my paperbacks in alphabetical order by author, so after enough new acquisitions I have to insert them and shift everything else down. Nicole's romances are sorted separately, and they form most of the overflow right now. And we're due for another reshelving, too.
The biggest reason we hadn't gotten them before was simply lack of space. Our bookshelves are in one of our basement rooms, the "futon room"(it's also got a futon in the middle, you see), covering most of the walls. Most of one corner was taken up by boxes containing our old computers--the 486 I had before this one, and another one that's older still. Only one monitor, because we gave one to Nicole's brother a few years ago.
On Saturday I found the impetus to at least shove all the boxes into the room's closet. This is nontrivial, because it has sliding doors that don't open very far, and I had to shove each box in sideways and then maneuver it into a position where I could get another box in after it. But I did it. Now there was actually room for more shelves. We figured that, by this time, we probably needed two.
We were going to try to give the computers to someplace for recycling, but we never got around to it, so into the closet they go. Maybe when we next move.
Still feeling full of gumption, I headed out to actually try to buy the shelves. We've been talking about this for weeks now, but it wasn't something we felt we could do with the kids in the car(they'd be squashed!), so it would involve one of us going out solo. And the Jeep looked like it would have more room anyway.
I checked Canadian Tire, where we'd seen some nice 6-foot shelves, but they only had five shelves on them. Most of the ones we have now have six shelves, and I wasn't willing to settle for only five. I went to Office Depot, where I remembered buying some very nice shelves before, but they had the same models as Canadian Tire...so I went back to CT, where they at least had extra shelves for sale as well. (I'd wanted to try Ikea too, but the store that used to be on Calgary Trail and Whitemud Drive has apparently moved, probably to South Edmonton Common...and I didn't want to face the Common on a Saturday afternoon.)
At Canadian Tire, with the help of a "customer assistance" guy, I loaded the boxed shelves into the Jeep. There wasn't as much room as I'd thought--they basically went right down between the front seats, about a foot from the dashboard. My right elbow was a little cramped, it was hard to shift, and the boxes slid forward if I stopped too suddenly...but I arrived home without mishap. I had to back into the driveway, which didn't go as well as it might have, because I'm not an experience backward parker, and the side mirrors on the Jeep suck mightily. I did get a couple of wheels into the neighbour's yard, but at least the hole the utilities people dug a few months ago has been filled in.
The shelves proper are a little bit different than I remember the last batch being. The last ones had some kind of cam arrangement to attach the fixed shelves...these ones have a hidden screw that you have to tighten with your screwdriver at an angle, and it wasn't that fun. One of them's done, anyway, or mostly. I still have two more shelves to put in, plus we have to someday drill a hole to put the extra shelf into. (Which it looks like is actually an inch or two too short...but I didn't have a lot of choice of sizes.) And then, of course, the fun part(and I mean that non-ironically)--actually putting the books on the shelves. That will make it all worthwhile.
