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Musings on a simple bookcase swap
I've talked about this in bits and pieces on the Book of Faces, but apparently never here. (That probably has more to do with wanting to share pictures.) The process also spurred me to create the "landed poor" tag for housing-related posts.
About three months ago, Borderlands Books announced they were closing their cafe. They were also selling off some of their furniture, and offered sponsors first crack (and 50% off). For that discount, I went over with the intent to get a bookcase. I don't buy much fiction anymore - it's one reason I chose to be a sponsor, since I'm not really supporting them through purchases. [On the occasions I do buy SFF, I try to buy it there rather than online... but that's maybe one or two a year. Or even fewer the last couple years.]
Anyway, I figured I'd swap out one of our 20-year-old 5x3' bookcases for one of their slightly-worn, but much more solid 8x3' fixed-shelf bookcases. We have 10' ceilings and the picture rail is right at eight feet - it's perfect for these guys. I wouldn't be completely filling the bookcase with existing books or even leaving space for future purchases; but it would allow some consolidation and maybe even a bit of reorganizing as I culled through stuff on the shelf we were punting. For the past several years, there hasn't been any floor space in the study; we haven't moved in fifteen years, so we've been accumulating crap. (Some of it, like SCA bedding, was just left packed away on the study floor for lack of and, honestly, not wanting to work to find any better place.) This also meant that I couldn't access the existing bookcase because there was too much stuff in the way. So part of my eeeevil plan was to force us to reorganize a bit in order to be able to actually swap the furniture, and hopefully maintain an access aisle in the future so that I could occasionally re-read the books on that shelf. (Which is the main reason I don't buy many books anymore: my rule of thumb is that I have to want to re-read a book at least twice to take up shelf space. Most books don't hit that mark, so I get them from the library. We're fortunate in having a public library that has books I want to read, or at least access to them through Link+ - but I digress.)
Getting the bookcase was quick and easy. They had many that fit the bill exactly. However, Borderlands also had a lovely antique walnut sideboard available in the front window - for stupid cheap. I texted a picture to the wife with the note "I kind of love this, but I don't know where we'd put it." She quickly responded "I do - we can swap out our TV cabinet for it." Arm suitably twisted, that came home with me as well. The Borderlands folks were pleased that it was going to someone who would take good care of it. But both pieces sat in the garage for a couple weeks while the weather dried out and we gathered the supplies (also, frankly, the necessary ert) to deal with them.
Next came refinishing. The wife did a lovely job with the sideboard - lightly sanding, then staining with a cherry/walnut combination finish and putting a varathane sealer finish on the top. It's slightly taller than the previous fairly generic wheeled cabinet, but not so much so that it's a problem to watch. It puts a nice piece of furniture where it can be appreciated. And since we don't need to put anything TV-related in it in these days of flat monitors, I moved all the spirits to it from the cabinet above the fridge. Pro: more space for bottles, more accessible to make drinks. Con: exactly the same reasons. That then left room in the cabinet for a few bulky items I had shoved all the way on top of the cabinets for lack of room anywhere else, like the slicer and the asparagus steamer.
The bookcase was both easier and harder to deal with. Harder because it is rough soft pine, which would have required many many hours of sanding to get smooth(ish). Easier because hey, it's just a pine bookcase and who cares if it's not refinished to the same standard as the sideboard. I did some basic sanding on the viewable areas (leaving the undersides of the shelves pretty rough). I would have liked to do a more robust sanding job but I just did not want to put the time in. Originally I was going to apply linseed oil - a finish we both quite like and one that we've used for the majority of our light wood furniture. But then I hit the donwannas, because it's a lot of work to mix, apply, sand off, reapply, rub off any excess, ad nauseum. So we went with a basic light stain instead.
While we were waiting for it to dry, the wife and I discussed which of the two 3x5' bookshelves we would replace. One was in better shape, but the other was less useful in its configuration. She had a radical idea: both of them. The less useful configuration one mainly had stacks of SCA fabric along with some random items. If we did some more-drastic culling as well as reorganization... that of course took more time and some painful choices. Quite a few trips to Goodwill and Friends of the Library later (with several bags to be delivered to Ducal Prize for SCA repurposing this weekend), we have a bunch less stuff. We still have several bags of trash waiting for weekly space in the can. The bags of SCA bedding got hung in the garage closet where they're accessible but out of the way.
The bookcase went in the corner of the study and we eventually got rid of the two bookcases; the wife actually had to drive down to Sunnyvale, as neither the SF nor the Burlingame Goodwill wanted them. Oh well.
Our house is an Edwardian flat. Built in 1910, it has their conception of usable closet space - all 1.5 of them. The wife converted the half-closet to shelves and filled it with remaining fabric and other supplies. We knew the upstairs neighbors had gotten an antique linen press some years back as an additional closet substitute. The store was still in business so the wife and I went over to look. They buy up 50 to 100-year-old furniture from England and Ireland and ship it over here, so they get inventory every couple months. A lot of the pieces are lightly damaged but most are in pretty good shape, and the prices are quite reasonable for the quality. We had actually half-fallen in love with an antique armoire from their website... which was gone when we went to the store. Oh well, that's the breaks. In the meantime we both continued to cull and straighten in the study. We got to a point where there was more floor space since probably first moving in!
We tried the furniture store again yesterday. As it happened we found a 1910 three-door walnut burl armoire that fit what we were looking for well: two doors' worth of closet and one with shelves. The price was pretty good, it was in reasonable shape, and it's an attractive piece. It's roughly six feet long and about 8' high when you include the legs. Since it's two feet deep it takes up a lot of real estate in the room... but the wife has already moved all her SCA dresses into it so our one remaining closet in our bedroom is not overstuffed. Some of the other piles of fabric and stuff will go into the shelves. We're also going to put all our SCA shoes in boxes in the leg-space underneath the armoire. Accessible yet out of the way. Similarly, our hats (both modern and SCA) will go on top. Yes, we won't be able to get to them without a stepladder, but that's okay. We keep one in the study for that purpose.
We're also going to buy an additional 32" antique armoire that we saw while looking yesterday. It's fairly narrow (and really cheap!) but that also means that we can fit it where the 8' bookcase currently is in the corner of the study. And it is shallow enough that we can butt it up against the wall without running into the window bay overhang - which saves us a lot of footprint space. We'll put the remaining SCA fabric and stuff in it. So where is the bookcase going to go? In the space currently occupied by an IKEA armoire! This will give us a better layout and (circling back to one of the top items) access to the books on it.
So, to sum up: three months ago I planned to upgrade one bookcase. Instead we have or are planning to:
And we're continuing to make hard choices about what we keep. Am I ever going to wear that SCA outfit again? If not - because I am larger than I was ten years ago, or because I habitually don't wear that era, for example - we probably shouldn't devote space to it.
This has been a much bigger investment of time and money than we planned. But I feel really good about what we're accomplishing.
About three months ago, Borderlands Books announced they were closing their cafe. They were also selling off some of their furniture, and offered sponsors first crack (and 50% off). For that discount, I went over with the intent to get a bookcase. I don't buy much fiction anymore - it's one reason I chose to be a sponsor, since I'm not really supporting them through purchases. [On the occasions I do buy SFF, I try to buy it there rather than online... but that's maybe one or two a year. Or even fewer the last couple years.]
Anyway, I figured I'd swap out one of our 20-year-old 5x3' bookcases for one of their slightly-worn, but much more solid 8x3' fixed-shelf bookcases. We have 10' ceilings and the picture rail is right at eight feet - it's perfect for these guys. I wouldn't be completely filling the bookcase with existing books or even leaving space for future purchases; but it would allow some consolidation and maybe even a bit of reorganizing as I culled through stuff on the shelf we were punting. For the past several years, there hasn't been any floor space in the study; we haven't moved in fifteen years, so we've been accumulating crap. (Some of it, like SCA bedding, was just left packed away on the study floor for lack of and, honestly, not wanting to work to find any better place.) This also meant that I couldn't access the existing bookcase because there was too much stuff in the way. So part of my eeeevil plan was to force us to reorganize a bit in order to be able to actually swap the furniture, and hopefully maintain an access aisle in the future so that I could occasionally re-read the books on that shelf. (Which is the main reason I don't buy many books anymore: my rule of thumb is that I have to want to re-read a book at least twice to take up shelf space. Most books don't hit that mark, so I get them from the library. We're fortunate in having a public library that has books I want to read, or at least access to them through Link+ - but I digress.)
Getting the bookcase was quick and easy. They had many that fit the bill exactly. However, Borderlands also had a lovely antique walnut sideboard available in the front window - for stupid cheap. I texted a picture to the wife with the note "I kind of love this, but I don't know where we'd put it." She quickly responded "I do - we can swap out our TV cabinet for it." Arm suitably twisted, that came home with me as well. The Borderlands folks were pleased that it was going to someone who would take good care of it. But both pieces sat in the garage for a couple weeks while the weather dried out and we gathered the supplies (also, frankly, the necessary ert) to deal with them.
Next came refinishing. The wife did a lovely job with the sideboard - lightly sanding, then staining with a cherry/walnut combination finish and putting a varathane sealer finish on the top. It's slightly taller than the previous fairly generic wheeled cabinet, but not so much so that it's a problem to watch. It puts a nice piece of furniture where it can be appreciated. And since we don't need to put anything TV-related in it in these days of flat monitors, I moved all the spirits to it from the cabinet above the fridge. Pro: more space for bottles, more accessible to make drinks. Con: exactly the same reasons. That then left room in the cabinet for a few bulky items I had shoved all the way on top of the cabinets for lack of room anywhere else, like the slicer and the asparagus steamer.
The bookcase was both easier and harder to deal with. Harder because it is rough soft pine, which would have required many many hours of sanding to get smooth(ish). Easier because hey, it's just a pine bookcase and who cares if it's not refinished to the same standard as the sideboard. I did some basic sanding on the viewable areas (leaving the undersides of the shelves pretty rough). I would have liked to do a more robust sanding job but I just did not want to put the time in. Originally I was going to apply linseed oil - a finish we both quite like and one that we've used for the majority of our light wood furniture. But then I hit the donwannas, because it's a lot of work to mix, apply, sand off, reapply, rub off any excess, ad nauseum. So we went with a basic light stain instead.
While we were waiting for it to dry, the wife and I discussed which of the two 3x5' bookshelves we would replace. One was in better shape, but the other was less useful in its configuration. She had a radical idea: both of them. The less useful configuration one mainly had stacks of SCA fabric along with some random items. If we did some more-drastic culling as well as reorganization... that of course took more time and some painful choices. Quite a few trips to Goodwill and Friends of the Library later (with several bags to be delivered to Ducal Prize for SCA repurposing this weekend), we have a bunch less stuff. We still have several bags of trash waiting for weekly space in the can. The bags of SCA bedding got hung in the garage closet where they're accessible but out of the way.
The bookcase went in the corner of the study and we eventually got rid of the two bookcases; the wife actually had to drive down to Sunnyvale, as neither the SF nor the Burlingame Goodwill wanted them. Oh well.
Our house is an Edwardian flat. Built in 1910, it has their conception of usable closet space - all 1.5 of them. The wife converted the half-closet to shelves and filled it with remaining fabric and other supplies. We knew the upstairs neighbors had gotten an antique linen press some years back as an additional closet substitute. The store was still in business so the wife and I went over to look. They buy up 50 to 100-year-old furniture from England and Ireland and ship it over here, so they get inventory every couple months. A lot of the pieces are lightly damaged but most are in pretty good shape, and the prices are quite reasonable for the quality. We had actually half-fallen in love with an antique armoire from their website... which was gone when we went to the store. Oh well, that's the breaks. In the meantime we both continued to cull and straighten in the study. We got to a point where there was more floor space since probably first moving in!
We tried the furniture store again yesterday. As it happened we found a 1910 three-door walnut burl armoire that fit what we were looking for well: two doors' worth of closet and one with shelves. The price was pretty good, it was in reasonable shape, and it's an attractive piece. It's roughly six feet long and about 8' high when you include the legs. Since it's two feet deep it takes up a lot of real estate in the room... but the wife has already moved all her SCA dresses into it so our one remaining closet in our bedroom is not overstuffed. Some of the other piles of fabric and stuff will go into the shelves. We're also going to put all our SCA shoes in boxes in the leg-space underneath the armoire. Accessible yet out of the way. Similarly, our hats (both modern and SCA) will go on top. Yes, we won't be able to get to them without a stepladder, but that's okay. We keep one in the study for that purpose.
We're also going to buy an additional 32" antique armoire that we saw while looking yesterday. It's fairly narrow (and really cheap!) but that also means that we can fit it where the 8' bookcase currently is in the corner of the study. And it is shallow enough that we can butt it up against the wall without running into the window bay overhang - which saves us a lot of footprint space. We'll put the remaining SCA fabric and stuff in it. So where is the bookcase going to go? In the space currently occupied by an IKEA armoire! This will give us a better layout and (circling back to one of the top items) access to the books on it.
So, to sum up: three months ago I planned to upgrade one bookcase. Instead we have or are planning to:
- get rid of two bookcases and one cheap-quality but large IKEA armoire
- buying one ginormous, attractive antique walnut armoire
- buying one small armoire
- converting a half-closet to shelves
- using a taller and sturdier bookcase
- upgrading a Swedish-style blond wood TV cabinet to an attractive antique walnut sideboard
And we're continuing to make hard choices about what we keep. Am I ever going to wear that SCA outfit again? If not - because I am larger than I was ten years ago, or because I habitually don't wear that era, for example - we probably shouldn't devote space to it.
This has been a much bigger investment of time and money than we planned. But I feel really good about what we're accomplishing.