Sunday 16 August 2015

Weekly Rundown: Another New Bookcase

I've had a pretty busy week this week. Aren't they all? After starting my blogging week relatively well and being organised with everything, it all fell apart somewhere around Wednesday so I didn't actually manage to get my Chapter-by-Chapter posts up. This may have actually worked out in my favour by putting me ahead by a week in my draft posts. I'm hoping I can use this to my advantage and get back on track.

A friend of mine is partly to blame for my disorganisation. I got a message from her on Wednesday to let me know that she'd found a Tolkien book and wanted to know whether I had it. It was a copy of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil & Farmer Giles of Ham. I replied yes and no as I already own a beautiful copy of the former, but not the latter. So she brought it round a short while later.

Which meant that instead of typing up my thoughts on the latest chapters of Twilight I ended up chatting about charity shop finds, books, the differences between editions and imprints and other important things. And so we came around to the subject of a bookcase that she was looking to rehome.

After a bit of a conflab with Mr Click we established that if we got rid of the desk upstairs, we'd have room for another bookcase up there. But where to get rid of the desk? As chance would have it, the same friend's daughter was looking for a desk. And so a deal was struck; one desk for one bookcase.

Clearing the desk was a daunting task, since it's been used as a general dumping ground. It's where I put stuff I want to list on eBay, stationery supplies, stuff that should probably be put away somewhere permanently but isn't, finished knitting projects, unfinished knitting projects, stuff that should have been binned but hasn't, as well as make up, hair stuff, and other assorted doodads, thingies and whatsits. Armed with a roll of bin bags, a duster and furniture polish, I set to work.

And it didn't actually take that long.

I still have a bin bag of stuff to sort through to decide whether to keep, donate or bin, but on the whole it was a relatively quick task.

It was actually kind of ironic. Once I'd cleared all the rubbish off the desk and saw it in all its uncluttered glory, I realised that actually it could be quite a useful piece of furniture. All the same, I think we made a good trade because the bookcase has been in the hour for a little over twelve hours and it's already getting quite a lot of use.


It looked like the sort of bookcase you would find in a church. It's old and made out of solid oak. The one slight problem we had when we received it was that two of the supports for the bottom shelf were missing. Luckily for us I missed my true calling as a Blue Peter presenter. A couple of bend split pins later and I had it fixed.


As it's so old I'm using it for my classics and older books. The top shelf is just the right size for Penguin Classics paperbacks. I'm also thinking of moving some of my vintage knitting books up there as well because that'll make them more easily accessible and stop them from getting crushed in my mess of a knitting cupboard. At some point soon I will need to pull out all of my books from the boxes they're stored in and play musical bookcases again.


Is it wrong that I'm really looking forward to that?

6 comments:

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    1. The timing couldn't have been better! :-)

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  2. No, it's fun to reorganize. Just don't let the bookcase become the new catch all. It can hold way more stuff than a desk.

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    1. The shelves are quite thin at the top so it's not going to be easy to use it as a dumping ground. I was dead chuffed though because I managed to empty two boxes of books onto it. And it's given us loads of room back in the spare bedroom.

      I had great fun playing musical bookcases this weekend.

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  3. Replies
    1. Me too. I think I'll have to stop now though, I can't see that we've got anywhere else in the house to put more now!

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Let me know what you think. :-)