BOOKCASE - COMPARTMENTS PART 2

Like a never-ending gobstopper this is definitely the project that keeps on giving… Oh boy, when is it all going to end?

 I'm enjoying the sunshine!

Now that the shelf compartment T pieces are dry, time to fit them into their final positions.

First up, the compartment containing the small drawer unit. Put the drawer unit into its final position on the desired shelf then carefully squeeze in the T piece next to it so that the vertical is tightly abutted next to the drawer unit.

Use drawers to help you position the T pieces

Using a spirit level to keep the horizontal shelf straight, use long wood screws to secure the T piece in place from the outer edge of the bookcase. 

Secure T piece from unseen edge of bookcase

Remember to countersink the screws as you don’t want anything sticking out. You are aiming for a nice snug fit - the unit should not be able to move when you open a drawer.

Compartments should look like this

Repeat for all other compartments. If you have cut your vertical timber sections to exact measurements, each T piece can be gently pushed into place without the need for screwing in from the top or bottom.

One side finished - repeat on the other bookcase

No word of a lie, this all sounds simple on paper but it’s a bugger in real life! Frustratingly, we had to re-cut two of the vertical sections because although we had ‘dry’ fitted everything perfectly before painting somehow the damn wood had mysteriously shrunk overnight. Aaaghhh!

Always follow the old DIY adage - ‘measure twice, cut once’.

And finally … All the T pieces added to the bookcase to make the quirky compartments.

Ready for backing boards to be added

LIBRARY BOOKCASE - COMPARTMENTS

Anyone for ‘T’?

After a fortnight of painting lounge walls, it’s time to cast aside the dust cloth shroud and resurrect the library bookcase which has lain forgotten under a pile of dirty sheets like an Egyptian mummy.

Walls now a lovely shade of Green Earth

If I thought we’d had a hard time of it so far on this project then think again. Aaaahhh! No wonder NJ charges a small fortune for its bespoke furniture, it probably has to use any surplus cash for carpenter counselling after each build.

Time to add the quirky compartments to the bookcase units – I’m having a meltdown before we’ve even begun! Whose great idea was it to add these compartments in the first place? I’ve only myself to blame…

In simplistic fashion, the bookcase compartments are being created using ‘T’ shaped inserts that will slot into the tallest shelf gaps thus splitting the space available into 3 smaller sections.

Creating a shelf compartment

To ensure best use is made of the available shelf space, each section has been created to correspond to the heights of particular books in our collection or with specific ornaments in mind.

Construct your ‘T’ shaped inserts with two pieces of wood. Imagine the letter ‘T’ but laid on its side. The vertical piece should be the height of the gap between the two horizontal shelves. Once you have determined the width of the tallest compartment and positioned the vertical piece, the remaining space should give you the dimension for the horizontal T bar. Cut and screw both pieces together on one side to make your ‘T’.

Make a T shaped section from 2 pieces of wood

Like the original NJ design, there are a number of compartments that will mirror each other in both our units so we’ve had to make four ‘T’ pieces and these will sit on the shelves in the following positions:

T piece positions prior to painting

I know it looks a bit Heath Robinson now but I’m sure once all the bits have been primed, painted and screwed into their final positions it’ll all start to make sense.

Now let’s crack open the black furniture paint and get these puppies painted!

Primed

Painted 

LOCK ME UP

The other half is looking a little more than anxious since I announced at the weekend that now might be a good time for me to hasten his demise as the new Government was planning on reducing prison sentences. His counter offensive was ‘yeah but who’d empty the bins or deal with the spiders?’ Good point!

Build more prisons!

Why is it that when we have a housing crisis the answer is to build more houses yet when we have a prison overcrowding problem, the answer is not to build more prisons but to let ‘bad ‘uns’ go free? Am I the only person here who thinks this is a potential recipe for disaster?

In America, prison overcrowding would likely have been resolved via lethal injection, in Britain the Government is hoping for a lethal injection of cash to fix the issue. However, whilst the politicos have fingers in pies, there’s little appetite for any actual baking. No doubt, secretly hoping that the private sector might stump up a few readies to move things along. Wouldn’t hold your breath Rachel love, the only PFI initiatives they’re interested in are those that spell ProFIt.

Prison overcrowding is not a simple problem to fix. For starters, there appears to be no shortage of ‘bad ‘uns’ queuing up for a stint at His Majesty’s pleasure. I noticed a notable lack of statistics relating to re-offending in the tabloid articles on this topic. I’m curious to know what percentage of career criminals doing a stretch go on to re-offend as soon as they are let out. Bob the Burglar isn’t likely to be the sort of person who ‘tried it once but didn’t like it’ is he? Are we just expected to offer him a cuppa then turn a blind eye whilst he makes off with the family silver? I don’t think so!

And talking of statistics – has anyone taken a look to see what the correlation is between ethnicity and knife/gun crime? I’m guessing there aren’t going to be too many white, middle-aged men wearing twinsets and pearls who now call themselves Georgina in that number. For fear of being cancelled as racist, I have an inkling I know why no-one’s publishing that diversity data.

Building a few more prisons may be costly but surely there’ll be greater benefits than just generating more cells for sheep rustlers, sycamore tree fellers or postmasters. I’m thinking job creation for the masses particularly in places like Port Talbot where soon to be redundant steel workers could be retrained as prison warders.

Private prisons – what a gold mine! Just think of all those lucrative Government contracts you could set up to recharge the Treasury for the cost of babysitting rapists and murderers. Surely there’s some enterprising venture capitalists out there who’d love to have their own high security haven for hell-raisers?

To appease the tofu-eating Wokerati, in future prison sentences could be referred to as ‘sleepovers’ so as not to appear too harsh to those in society who think it’s OK to kill people then take them to Bristol in a suitcase. Good job they weren’t flying Ryanair – imagine the excess baggage charges!

When the new future luxury haven for hell-raisers is eventually built, please lock me up so I won’t have to do any more painting or worry about dealing with bins or spiders.

Gary Larson's spider problem

SUMMER!

We’re heading for mid-July – there’s a new Government in town, England are through to the Euro footie final and it’s been the coldest summer for years. Hurrah! You’ve just got to love British Summer Time.

Amidst all this political and sporting excitement, I’ve picked this week to begin painting the lounge which is proving quite the challenge in this humidity. Phew! I’m knackered after just two mist coats and if I wrung out my sweaty T-shirt I'm sure it would sort out Spain's water shortage!

Plastered lounge dry and ready for painting

Hmm - there's quite a lot to paint

After 2 mist coats with contract matt emulsion

Add an undiluted coat of white to finish off the mist coats

What you really need when it’s hot is a nice cold whippy ice cream and where best to get a scrummy one but McDonalds (McDs, Maccies, Macky D’s, Mackers, Mickey D’s or whatever you want to call it). Wait a mo. What do you mean there’s no McFlurrys? Or milkshakes? Is there anything remotely refreshing to order?

Smarty McFlurry - my favourite

Has anyone else noticed how McDonald’s mysteriously has shortages of both milkshakes or ice cream usually on the hottest days? I thought it was just me but there does appear to be a distinct online trend of punters ending up with Unhappy Meals that don’t include these items on days when the mercury rises.

Last year, I emailed Ronald McDonald to apprise him of this situation having visited 3 of their fast-food outlets in West Sussex, all of which had a severe lack of McFlurrys during the summer heatwave. I said ‘Ron, mate. My sandals have melted into the tarmac yet there’s not a single milkshake or lolly to be had in West Sussex (near London). I mean, what the hell?’

Hello?  I'm calling about the McFlurry incident...

Eventually Ron sent me a reply along the lines that McFlurry-Gate was due to supply chain issues and staff shortages as allegedly it takes 4 hours to clean the machine so no bugger can do it when restaurants are busy.

Okay – I can understand supply chain issues but really? Are you telling me that the world’s shipment of whippy powder was hijacked by a Vogon Constructor fleet on its way back from Alpha Centauri? Or that it was stuck onboard that ship wedged in the Suez Canal? Come on Ron – you can do better than that!

God its hot here - fancy a McFlurry?

And as for staff shortages, well that’s a site management issue. Restaurant managers surely know that when it is hot, punters want cold drinks and ice cream so it’s down to them to ensure their staff roster includes someone to clean machinery needed to make these things. Why aren’t they checking the weekly forecasts before they sort out staff shifts? It would make sense for them to suss out well in advance when they’d need the precious whippy powder to avoid this predicament.

In the meantime, I’ll have to make do with one of Lidl’s finest chocolate chip lollies to cool my fevered, emulsion covered brow. Yummy!

Mint choc chip - perfect post paint cool down

FLIPPING HECK

It’s the eve of the election, all eyes will be on the polls tomorrow. Mrs Sunak is probably bubble-wrapping her china as I type and Larry the mouser is no doubt hoping for a feline friendly caretaker that might dish out regular treats and belly rubs. Friday’s tabloid headlines are likely to be a bit mental. However, until then I hope the politicos have a few spare minutes to scroll down this post. Sir Keir – that means you!

I watched a TV programme a couple of nights ago on Channel 4 called ‘Skint: The Truth About Britain’s Broken Economy’ and parts of it got me so riled up, I hardly slept a wink. There were many good points raised by the economist presenter but I felt that other parts didn’t delve deep enough into the ‘maths’ as promised.

Skint - yeah, we all are!

The presenter talked about the current housing crisis; the point was made about a lack of council/social housing yet the solution proposed was not for local authorities to build or acquire cheap properties to fix this issue but to relax planning regulations further and to consider using green belt areas skirting larger cities so that even more new houses could be built.

Watching today’s episode of ‘Homes Under the Hammer’ made me realise that one contributory factor to today’s housing crisis is that Britain has become a nation of ‘Flippers’. Flippers? Is she on about the rubbery fins scuba divers wear on their feet? Nope.

Not this kind of home buyer

‘Flippers’ are people who buy property with the aim to tart it up cheaply then re-list quickly back onto the housing market to make a fast buck. ‘Flippers’ are mostly tradespeople, those who have an extensive network of other trades they can call upon or those who are a bit handy themselves and not afraid to roll up their sleeves for a spot of DIY.

Flippers scour the housing market snapping up all those dirt cheap dilapidated old wrecks fit only for demolition then turn these sow’s ears into silk housing purses that can be sold on for a tidy profit. Even my plumber is at it; as he recently explained there was more money to be made with a couple of ‘flips’ than in a year’s worth of work servicing gas boilers.

Then there are the ‘Frippers’ – these folks buy up the dross, do it up then rent out the properties as ‘high end’ lets for an exorbitant rent whilst they wait for the housing market to move upwards, enjoying the rental income then off-loading the property once the price has substantially increased. Frippers are unlikely to be long-term landlords, they’ll need to crystalise their investment at a future point ready for their next venture leaving renters out on their ear.

It seems some people are not content to leave their savings in a traditional deposit account preferring instead to plough their dosh into bricks and mortar thus fuelling the demand for property and pushing up prices. What the Channel 4 programme failed to mention is that the reason there is little affordable property on the market for first time buyers is because anything cheap is snapped up by the Flippers, Frippers, foreign investors and second home owners with Governments doing little about it. Any why would they? After all this is Britain, the land of free-market capitalism and not some socialist state. They call it ‘growth’ and that’s all they care about.

One way out of the housing crisis is NOT to continually build more properties which puts money in private developer pockets and pressure on existing infrastructure but to look more closely at WHO is buying it in the first place. Legislate so that there are more controls in place to minimise Flipping, Fripping, second home and investor ownership thus enabling more housing stock to be available for first time buyers.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea for the new Government to think about how it can raise further revenue from these practices so that it could then plough this into much needed social housing projects. CGT and Council Tax for second home owners needs to be pitched at a level that ensures those depriving young people of affordable housing are footing the bill for more social housing.

Some of the Channel Islands have the right idea by having a ‘primary’ housing market price for non-islanders and a cheaper ‘secondary’ market price for local residents. Perhaps the UK could consider adopting a similar way forward in each county.

Crikey! I’m exhausted just thinking about all that flipping and fripping going on. Just think, in a few decades time there’ll be no old fixer uppers left to buy so how will young people acquire useful DIY skills?

Remember - Vote Larry!

LIBRARY BOOKCASE - ASSEMBLY

Only 4 days until we’re heading for the polls. Will the British public finally rise up in revolution against the hated Tories or will the usual ‘apathy rules OK’ be the case?

My money’s on the latter. What! You mean I can’t put a bet on the election outcome? Not even the teeniest flutter? What if I send the cat down to the bookies instead? Oh alright, I’ll just do it in my head then seeing as how the current Government haven’t yet used AI to create Thought Police.

Not going to the Bookies - too busy sitting on your bit of wood

As the politicos ramp up their final few days of electioneering, it’s time for us to ramp up efforts to get this library bookcase assembled and that’s not going to be easy as I’ve definitely reached the ‘apathy rules OK’ point in this project and would rather be gardening.

Back to the task in hand. To minimise the ‘wonk’ assembly factor, we’re using the nice flat surface of our dining table as a workbench since there’s no-where else big enough or level enough for us to work on.

Wish we had a proper workshop

Starting with the sides of the ‘H’ shape, begin by screwing into position the top and bottom horizontal shelves so that you have a fancy shaped ‘H’ with two cross pieces instead of one. Fitting these in first should provide greater stability when adding the rest of the shelves.

First make a wooden 'H' shape 

Continue to add shelves at your required heights then repeat for the second unit.

Continue to add shelves

The key thing here is to ensure that all the horizontal shelves are visually aligned so that they run across both units forming one continuous line. Achieving this is quite tricky, often involving fitting both units backwards in situ so that shelf positions can be accurately marked out onto the back face.

Horizontal shelves should all be visually aligned

It’s at this point that I’ve realised that I really hate furniture making. I’m such a perfectionist that even the smallest millimetre out sends me into a volcanic rage. I can’t bear to see things ‘on the piss’ so there’s always a few tantrums or tears when after what seems like a super-human effort, things don’t turn out right.

At first glance our almost finished bookcase units look pretty good, most shelves aligned but it's only when you get up close with the tape measure and spirit level that you begin to realise that all is not perfect. Yeah, there are some shelves a teeny bit higher than others and a few that slope towards the edges. We gave it our best shot!

Bookcase assembled and ready for compartment fitting

When all is said and done, I think it’s a pretty good effort for a couple of old duffers like us.