PUTTING BABY IN THE CORNER

After weeks of sanding, sawing and slapping on numerous coats of F&B’s Stiff Key blue paint onto the unassembled bookcase, it’s finally time to put this baby in the corner.

I'm making sure she gets on with it

Painted in Farrow & Ball Stiff Key Blue

Working in a room that’s only fractionally wider than the unit itself and hotter than the Sahara is challenging but not impossible with a bit of clever jiggery pokery.

Assemble from the outside then inwards. Balancing the outer frame of the bookcase on plastic A frames and a small office desk, we squeezed our sweaty butts round to screw together the main carcass section. Breathe in fatty!

Couldn't swing a cat in here

Before adding any shelves, lift the carcass into position on top of a separately constructed skirting height plinth to check sizing. Yep, all fits nicely into the alcove gap.

Fits perfectly

If you had one of those flat pack instruction sheets, it would now say proceed to step 2 but we’re just making it up as we go along.

Having checked that the outer carcass fits neatly into the gap, time to add the shelves. I’d previously numbered these along the unpainted back edge to make fitting easier.

Step 2 - fit shelves

As you can see from the photos, shelves have to be fitted BEFORE the final end panel. Why? Because you’d never get a drill or a sausage-fingered hand into the narrow dead zone gap if it was a completed rectangle.

Shelves fitted before end panel

With everything pre-drilled, screw holes countersunk in advance, adding the numbered shelves is a relatively quick task. It helps to have a super-duper set of large clamps to hold all the pieces tightly together whilst making sure all timbers are level. Hey presto! An almost complete bookcase.

Almost done

And now for the anchorage. Due to the construction nature of the alcove walls, the bookcase is to be anchored to the masonry wall on the left-hand side by means of large screws drilled through the wooden end panel into the brickwork. These will be in the dead zone so not visible to the public eye.

Work out where the holes will be on the wall by drilling through the shelf panel first. 

Drill anchorage holes in the end panel

Put the panel into its final position and using a bradawl tool poke this through the drilled hole to mark where the holes in the wall will be. We’ve used 3 long thick masonry screws to hold the bookcase tightly to the brick wall. There. Nothing's going to rock this boat!

Once anchorage holes have been drilled, time to fit the final end panel to the assembled unit and re-slot it into the alcove ready to fix to the wall.

Half a day later and at least a stone lighter – part I of the corner bookcase complete. Baby is now in the corner waiting for its smaller twin to arrive.

Part I of corner bookcase completed