CORNER BOOKCASE - PART II

Onwards and upwards I say which is particularly apt when building a bookcase that’s twice your own height.

Work is well underway in the construction of the second part of the corner bookcase.

Assembling the second narrower bookcase

For maximum use of the limited space available in the alcove, the second unit is being made of pine-board that is 200 mm wide. These narrow planks are still wide enough to accommodate most averagely sized paperback books plus allow a small area of display space in front.

Straightforward assembly

Mirroring the first unit in that shelves are equally spaced with a gap of approx. 25.5 cm. I’m hoping this will visually make the shelves appear aligned at the same height as those of the first bookcase. The only difference is that on this unit, there are no shelves allowing for any tall volumes or a third upright for a 'dead zone'.

Being only 66 cm wide, this second bookcase will be fully painted and assembled prior to its journey to Somerset. After the last assembly palaver, much better to shoe-horn it into the other half’s chariot as the finished article than faffing around propping timber on office desks.

Priming and painting as a fully assembled unit

Another stint of priming, painting and bank holiday DIY is on the cards, expertly timetabled in around a day out at the Victorious Festival and afternoon tea at one of the local garden centres.

Second bookcase almost done

CARMAGEDDON

August – a month now associated with mini heatwaves, swimming in underheated public pools or reading about record numbers of migrant crossings. The school summer break has long had the reputation of being a holiday wash out but this year’s certainly been a scorcher so far.

August – also the time of year for my Pug princess’s annual MOT check, an event that causes my pulse to race at the mere thought of being presented with another hefty bill for replacement car parts or a list of ‘advisories’ resembling a Halfords warehouse inventory.

Peugeot 206 - a diesel darling

Cars, like humans, begin to slowly fall apart with age and my little Peugeot is no exception. The diesel dowager is now 17 years old but still pootling along. Bless.

I love this little car so much that the thought of having to replace her at some future date is enough to make me want to give up driving. Not for me the electric behemoths that suck the grid dry or hog at least 2 parking spaces at the supermarket. Nope – if God had wanted us to drive electric vehicles, He’d have made us all milkmen!

The ultimate electric vehicle

An MOT also heralds the annual car clean. It’s the only time the crumb covered interior ever gets to see a vacuum cleaner as life’s too precious to waste wiping down windscreens or waxing paintwork. I’ve got enough interior paintwork to sort out without wondering where to magic up minutes to pimp my ride.

Besides which this year I have the perfect excuse for not cleaning the car in that I’m likely to be grassed up to the water company by over-zealous neighbours making sure peeps don’t squander any of the precious wet stuff. Dare I risk using the hosepipe? I’m much too lazy to lift a bucketful of water from kitchen to driveway.

Unlike humans, cars never complain about being dirty or having bits held together with gaffer tape. Have the NHS considered the merits of gaffer tape? It would be a cheaper alternative to surgery or other conventional treatments that appear to have fallen by the wayside of late. Perhaps in shifting care to the community, the Government could consider garages as a place that might give people health MOTs whilst they wait for their cars to be repaired or tested.

Revolutionary new health treatment

In the meantime, it’s time for me to whip out the magic sponge, Turtle Wax and re-introduce Dyson to my diesel darling to prepare her for her date with MOT destiny.

DULALA

As the English language continues to degenerate into a conversational tool for chimps, the Cambridge Dictionary’s latest edition now includes ‘words’ that could have been invented by my 2 year-old grandson on his potty.

Nanna I need the toilulu

Not one to be confounded by this new gibberish, I thought I’d join in by writing this post in the style of language used by today’s socially media influenced youth.  It goes something like this:

Oi wowars (hey woke warriors) I maysie olfee but me no dulala yet. (I maybe an old fogey by your standards but I’ve not gone totally doolally yet).

Wassa ridicularsee bingo lingo? (What’s this ridiculous rubbish that passes for English these days?) Snot banging. (It’s not great). Onesie deffo brainbashing no solulu, youse bedwettee icepops. (One definitely thinks this is not the solution – you nonsensically immature snowflakes).

Desi pooblab (stop talking shit) and boss Chas lingo (and master the King’s English) belulu mashhead (before your brains turn to mash potato).

Seriously, enough with this absolute massacre of the English language! 

If you can’t be bothered to read, write or talk properly what makes you think that these cretinous new terms sound cool or would be remotely entertained in the world of real work? Imagine how daft business reports or official correspondence would be if peppered with this monkey language. It would read almost as bad as my own efforts to create new dictionary worthy words.

Have you actually stopped to listen to yourselves? Yep, I thought not. Well, if you haven’t then I’d like to recommend a few YouTube video clips of the late great Stanley Unwin, master of gobbledygook because this is exactly what you sound like. The only ‘delulus’ out there are you lot if you think those of us who received a proper education are ever going to resort to trotting out this tripe. 

Cambridge Dictionary - this is not a futuristic development of language!!!!

The Revised 2025 Chimp Edition

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