Shelf supports installed!

[mckitterick]

With the super-duper help of 0verdrive and the moral support (and woman's eye) of chernobylred, I finally have the foundation for our 140 linear book-feet of shelves in our living room. I also cut all the shelving to size and purchased all the remaining pieces needed to finish.

It's going to be a way-cool shelving unit... well, not exactly "unit": I should say that one entire wall of our living room will be bookshelves, and I'm talking about a 12-foot-tall and 16-foot-long wall here. Rear of the shelves is supported by 1x2s screwed into studs (lemme tell you how fun it is finding studs behind the drywall of a house where monkeys seemed to have done the framing...), fronts are to be joined by 1/2-round strips which add support, and half the weight is carried by thin stainless-steel aircraft cables attached to anchors in the studs over the shelves. There'll even be a shorter (the roofline angles starting at the 8' point) shelf at the top for Tatsuko to climb onto (via a cat-ramp) and walk through the little window to the upstairs.

Kij has a theory that any project time-estimate needs to be run through the following formula: Double it and add 30. Seems to be true. Things like measuring and re-measuring, then coming up with work-arounds when you discover just how uneven your walls are, these things consumed more than half the time. If it weren't for 0verdrive's help, I suspect I'd be building these shelves in my graying years, or setting fire to them. But, at this point, I think it'll only take one more weekend. Yay!

I had been hoping to surprise Kij with completed shelves when she got home, but I'd have to take a day or two off work to do so. Oh, well, seeing progress will probably be a nice homecoming, too.

Then the window seat....

Chris

Comments

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Eeee! I:m so happy! You rule.

[chernobylred.livejournal.com]

I hope her woman's eye agrees with my woman's eye. =)

[the-monkey-king.livejournal.com]

Aircraft cable? Cat-ramps and cat-windows? Sounds much more impressive than your everyday shelves.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

That's the idea! If you're building your own, why settle for boring stack-of-boxes style bookshelves? Now if I can only get past the paranoia that they'll collapse when we add books.... Not that they will -- I did all the calculations for weight-bearing and even tested the connectors myself using primitive but pursuasive tests -- but intuitively it just seems impossible!

Chris

[http://users.livejournal.com/kai_/]

I've got a stud-finder if you want to borrow it.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I burned through two batteries on two stud-finders during this project. Wow, lots of screws.

Chris

[bellanorth.livejournal.com]

140 linear feet? Not only do these sound cool, but I'm definitely envying the space. I've given away so many books over the years, and resisted so many more, for the lack of space, that it sounds like a dream.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, right now we have boxes upon boxes of books in, um, boxes, some of which we haven't seen for years. It'll be a huge relief to not only clear the floorspace but also be able to read them again! I think Kij might also need a proper library ladder, as well, to reach the top shelves >g<

Chris