here, without much commentary, are the during and after shots of the new living room book shelves. still have one to complete over the bay window in the south wall, need to design some abbreviated height brackets to accomplish that, so it's on the back burner for a week while I wind down a bit. Once the mantle, bookcase set in over the mantle, new door and interior shutters are complete, I'll post the whole set of before and after pix...
(click on any to enlarge)
They do encircle the room, but I don't want to post pictures yet until the bay window section is complete and the bookcase/mantel thing is done.
the brackets for the living room book shelves are finally assembled...
I spent yesterday at the drill press, drilling all the screw holes and counter sinks, then spent two hours assembling everything. Today is going to be a wasted day, we have a combination graduation party and Father's day party to attend, so nothing else will get done until tomorrow, when I'll shoot the line around the room with the laser level and start putting up the brackets. After they're mounted to the walls, I'll rip and trim to length the ledger strips to support the back of the shelves, prime and paint them, then spend Monday putting them up. I might actually have this done by the 4th, maybe even have the inset bookcase over the mantle assembled, stained and in place as well. We'll see.
More rain today. Everything is growing like gang busters. The Thuja that I put in last May are almost three times the size they were then. All the perennials and annuals are lush and full and huge. Even the vegetables are going wild. I've yet to use any of the irrigation system I put in last year. Well, I've a few errands to run before we leave for the festivities. Enjoy the day.
I was up at 5:30 this morning, although, I have to admit, I medicated myself into a coma last night when I got home from work, I had a headache that defies description by words that can be uttered by mere mortals... I put a coat of finish color on the new living room door trim, hung out with Tiger The Cat for a while, then ran my usual Saturday morning errands to the post office and the recycling place, then headed over to The Big Orange Box in town to get some more foam roller covers for my trim roller and some blue painter's tape, then came home and started painting some of the pieces for the living room book shelf brackets...
These are just the pieces that make up the vertical and horizontal parts, the angle braces still need to be ripped and cut, I guess I'll get to that tomorrow. Here's the result of four hours of off and on painting...
The blue tape keeps the paint off the gluing surface of the dado in the vertical piece that mounts to the wall, into which the shorter horizontal pieces will be set, the slight dado will offer up a bit more strength. I'm still a bit sketchy about loading the final shelves up with books and such, I think I'm going to add weight little by little until I'm sure they're not going to come down and kill one of us. It's not that I don't have faith in my handiwork or my design, which is based upon some serious calculation using some tables I worked up for the weight bearing limits of certain types of wood, fasteners, etc, but I've moved enough boxes of books around to know how heavy the are. Time will tell, I suppose.
Well, time to kick back and watch some "go fast, turn left" for a while. Have a wonderful evening, friends.
