Bookcases are complete!
This is a way delayed post that I intended to make when it actually happened, but ran out of energy.
If you can believe it, we actually finished the bookcases. Since the renters didn't want the brick-and-board bookcases in the house due to possible problems with the 3yos climbing on them, we suddenly stood to save a lot of storage money (the unfinished bookcases and the books that go on them) by finishing them. They really were almost done, but "almost" stretched into a couple of hours a day for a week. It was stress we really didn't need, and it pushed more move out stuff to the weekend than we would have liked. But it DID save us from upgrading to a larger storage unit, which is ~$500 savings over 10 months.
And, perhaps more profoundly, it allowed us to leave the country with all of our long-term projects complete. That adds a kind of deep sense of satisfaction, and it makes most of our "loose ends" feel tied up.
The dining room with brick and board:
The dining room with the new bookcases:
The gap is where my grandmother's china cabinet will be when we return. It was safely relocated to the storage unit for while we're away.
I'm very pleased with the result, even though we did have to cut a few corners to get there in time. And even though it was a push, it didn't make my enthusiasm for woodworking wane. Now that the brick and board is gone, we'll probably need to build the library bookcases before we can unbox those books. After a hiatus in Europe, I think we'll be happy to turn our garage back into a wood shop -- with no deadlines this time.
If you can believe it, we actually finished the bookcases. Since the renters didn't want the brick-and-board bookcases in the house due to possible problems with the 3yos climbing on them, we suddenly stood to save a lot of storage money (the unfinished bookcases and the books that go on them) by finishing them. They really were almost done, but "almost" stretched into a couple of hours a day for a week. It was stress we really didn't need, and it pushed more move out stuff to the weekend than we would have liked. But it DID save us from upgrading to a larger storage unit, which is ~$500 savings over 10 months.
And, perhaps more profoundly, it allowed us to leave the country with all of our long-term projects complete. That adds a kind of deep sense of satisfaction, and it makes most of our "loose ends" feel tied up.
The dining room with brick and board:
The dining room with the new bookcases:
The gap is where my grandmother's china cabinet will be when we return. It was safely relocated to the storage unit for while we're away.
I'm very pleased with the result, even though we did have to cut a few corners to get there in time. And even though it was a push, it didn't make my enthusiasm for woodworking wane. Now that the brick and board is gone, we'll probably need to build the library bookcases before we can unbox those books. After a hiatus in Europe, I think we'll be happy to turn our garage back into a wood shop -- with no deadlines this time.