Another Saturday loomed last weekend, as they have a habit of doing, and, after getting half drowned by a sudden downpour on our way to a couple of bank appointments (which were not, for once, anything to do with me), we headed soggily home having not bothered to call in as planned at the card shop, or the book shop, or even at the supermarket, such was our disconsolation, and the general squelchiness of our shoes.
We did, however, call in at the timber merchants because, after my midweek telephone call ascertained that I would not have to "pre-book" my timber cutting, the two short planks I was missing (or, perhaps intellectually resemble) to complete my shelving project were asked for, and then given to me in a mere trice, as I mooched around the shop looking for nails, drill bits and wood filler, looking for all the world as if I knew what I was doing.
I even managed to avoid faking (too much) some "blokey banter" as I headed to the counter and, hopefully, resembled any other "ordinary punter" with a DIY project in hand, instead of the pathetic wet-liberal, rather-too-eager-to-please idiot that I normally present to builders, plumbers, garage mechanics, or any other professionals of that ilk.
Still, with all of that stuff safely transported home, and my wet clothes safely divested, I put on my "work clothes", downed my coffee, grabbed the current audiobook CDs from out of my work bag, and set about day two of my woodwork project.
Well, there was no cricket to listen too last weekend, and it's only that or a long, long audiobook that seems to be able to keep me from impatience or distraction when it comes to doing "little jobs" such as these.
Well, there was no cricket to listen too last weekend, and it's only that or a long, long audiobook that seems to be able to keep me from impatience or distraction when it comes to doing "little jobs" such as these.
The job itself involved little more than cutting a few more pieces of timber - including the new ones - to the required lengths, drilling a few carefully measured holes, and then screwing the whole lot together into a hopefully sturdy and substantial whole and giving birth to, voila!, two sets of soon-to-be "floating" bookshelves intended for the alcoves upstairs that were so expertly replastered last year, and from which several piles of books have remained stubbornly "in my way" ever since..
The next day, with these two vast creations now proving to be seriously "in my way" in the kitchen (I so-o-o-o need a workshop…!) and not having fallen apart overnight, I - perhaps rather surprisingly, given that I seldom have the energy to use both of my weekdays up on a project - talked myself into applying the first coat of primer and have now convinced myself that, once the top coats of paint are applied next weekend, it will be time to get myself involved in the tricky little matter of attaching them to the wall, which is not something I'm looking forward to, given their weight and my own fundamental incompetence.
Already I'm looking at the gaps I left at the back of my creations - for the battens to go into - and wondering whether I've left them too narrow, despite all of my careful measuring, so that trying to force the whole thing onto them will ultimately prove to be utterly and frustratingly futile and cause me to utter a whole barrel full of unrepeatable and unquotable oaths that might make an entire dockyard blush.
There's also the slight problem that I may have made the drop of them far too deep so that the chairs we bought may no longer be able to be pushed up against the wall like they currently are. This, I'll admit, was something I forgot all about when first measuring up, but if I compensate for this now, by moving the units nearer to the ceiling than I had originally planned, the tricky little problem of getting a screwdriver into the gap to attach the unit to the wall battens securely suddenly becomes an issue.
And so I find myself suddenly wishing I'd paid someone else to do the job...
Then there's the matter of simple engineering and the physics of the forces involved in keeping various bits of wood attached to walls and then piling a couple of hundredweights worth of novels onto them; Will I find my insomnia being still further fed by the anticipation of that sudden loud crash in the night as the whole lot comes crashing down about our ears…? Or, will I become so very blasé that, after a couple of uneventful months, I will take their sturdiness for granted and place just one more "waffer-thin" novel into place and then have the whole lot turn me into a Flat Stanley…?
As with everything I do, the worries never cease, especially as I've decided to get a little more experimental this time and try to get away from my usual "belt and braces" approach to shelf-building which seldom look pretty, but do, at least, tend to stay put.
The next day, with these two vast creations now proving to be seriously "in my way" in the kitchen (I so-o-o-o need a workshop…!) and not having fallen apart overnight, I - perhaps rather surprisingly, given that I seldom have the energy to use both of my weekdays up on a project - talked myself into applying the first coat of primer and have now convinced myself that, once the top coats of paint are applied next weekend, it will be time to get myself involved in the tricky little matter of attaching them to the wall, which is not something I'm looking forward to, given their weight and my own fundamental incompetence.
Already I'm looking at the gaps I left at the back of my creations - for the battens to go into - and wondering whether I've left them too narrow, despite all of my careful measuring, so that trying to force the whole thing onto them will ultimately prove to be utterly and frustratingly futile and cause me to utter a whole barrel full of unrepeatable and unquotable oaths that might make an entire dockyard blush.
There's also the slight problem that I may have made the drop of them far too deep so that the chairs we bought may no longer be able to be pushed up against the wall like they currently are. This, I'll admit, was something I forgot all about when first measuring up, but if I compensate for this now, by moving the units nearer to the ceiling than I had originally planned, the tricky little problem of getting a screwdriver into the gap to attach the unit to the wall battens securely suddenly becomes an issue.
And so I find myself suddenly wishing I'd paid someone else to do the job...
Then there's the matter of simple engineering and the physics of the forces involved in keeping various bits of wood attached to walls and then piling a couple of hundredweights worth of novels onto them; Will I find my insomnia being still further fed by the anticipation of that sudden loud crash in the night as the whole lot comes crashing down about our ears…? Or, will I become so very blasé that, after a couple of uneventful months, I will take their sturdiness for granted and place just one more "waffer-thin" novel into place and then have the whole lot turn me into a Flat Stanley…?
As with everything I do, the worries never cease, especially as I've decided to get a little more experimental this time and try to get away from my usual "belt and braces" approach to shelf-building which seldom look pretty, but do, at least, tend to stay put.
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