Uh oh! I saw Ana White's Sketchup tutorial last night and kind of got going on that... next thing I know I've got my cheap Walmart bookshelf drawn out on it (the medium height, 3 shelf model that sells for about $15 in my area) and I'm going from there to building a cabinet to set it on. And of course today I couldn't help but stop by Home Depot to snag some plywood.

You see, I'm in a bit of a tight spot. I had gotten a bookshelf about 6 years ago, by Thomas O'Brian's Target line, that was beautiful.I FOUGHT to get this bookcase. There are 2 Targets in the Jackson area, and I hounded both of them for three months before either got this bookshelf in - couldn't even order it online, and yet there it was, standing on display in both stores! I got this home and didn't even wait for my boyfriend to get home to put it together (back then that boyfriend hoarded, rather jealously, all construction rights). And promptly loaded it with my rather hefty collection of books. And it all FIT! And still had room for picture frames! It was a miracle! However, I should have taken the hint from the model that was being dropped from Target's line, and was later replaced by a smaller, sturdier, though decidedly less attractive version.

Fast forward 4 years: I'd broken up with that boyfriend, and stowed this shelf in my folks' garage with the rest of my stuff while I moved around in transition, until I finally settled down in the rental house with my older brother. The place was a ranch built in maybe the 60s, with a foundation typical of a lower end home sitting on top of yazoo clay: slightly wavy. And I didn't realize it, but the wall I placed my lovely bookshelf on sloped down away from the wall. So here I was several months later, with a fully (heavily) loaded bookshelf that I realize is beginning to lean over the bed, evidently contemplating dumping my brass and/or marble bookends on my skull in my sleep. Either set features a wonderfully spiky unicorn head, so it could potentially end up a rather gory situation. So I purchased the first of my little Walmart bookshelves, reduced the load on my lovely bookcase, did what I could to ease it back to the wall, and moved on.

Fast forward to the present day: I'm back in school with a new apartment with blessedly flat floors, but the bookshelf continues to look dangerously unstable despite the lesser weight. After literally tying it back to the wall for a while, and then later using my little dining table against it to hold it there, it's finally been deconstructed. The refugee books have formed their camp on my little dumpster rescue hutch that's been serving as my entryway console table/shelf/thingy, but they're over capacity, with my textbooks from 4 semesters simply piled on top as neatly as possible. My keys, as little often as they ended up there like they were supposed to (I am forever losing my keys!), now have no clean surface to be set on, when I think to do that. On top of this, my art supply cabinet (also from Walmart, the tall skinny one) is also beyond capacity, since I'm taking art classes (yay art supplies), doing woodwork rather regularly (yay power tools like circular saws and such), and of course now there's the new sewing machine from Christmas and all its fun supplies that have yet to begin accumulating (my crochet supplies have long since been relegated to a little storage ottoman).

I am grossly under-storage-optioned. I can't even shove artwork under the bed anymore since my bedframe broke after an ill-aimed flop collapsed a leg - and I promise, I am not even anywhere near overweight! I have books piling up, and of course I can't help but snag new ones fairly often - especially new old hardback classics from thrift stores. I need storage - lots of it - and my budget is TINY. I am an unemployed college student, after all! And so it falls down to my being stuck with having to make just the right thing for myself! Which leads me back around to the Sketchup drawing.
The top half is the Walmart bookshelf, plus an added trim around the top. The bottom is a 2 shelf, 32 5/8" tall, 15" deep, 29 1/2" wide cabinet that can host my spillover books and tools. Since I have 2 of these bookshelves, I'll work to get 2 of these cabinets constructed, before making the bookcases themselves obsolete with a taller, perhaps ceiling-height, 5-shelf model, made by myself. Because quite honestly, these are a bit short... I've actually got them stacked on top of each other right now and it's an awkward looking height.

At least that's the plan. I do get a bit ambitious sometimes. Remember: I have no patience! But I have a weekend ahead of me with only a little bit of collaging competing for time for my intercession Illustration class. It should even snow Sunday, so I can spend my day warm and indoors playing with plywood. So be watching for later this weekend!