I love this story, and especially the way the Bantrys pronounce library in this adaptation. But fret not, there isn’t a body in our library. But there is a library!
We have a shortage of space for my books. I don’t have that many, honest. But we’ve had to put our large shelving unit in the loft as it’s too big for where we’d hoped it would go. The boxes which used to live on top of the bookcase in my study won’t fit on the top here as the ceilings are much lower, so they’re now using up valuable shelf space. The solution (I’m so proud of this!) was to put a high level shelf along two walls of the guest room. And that will take the book overflow quite nicely thank you. Project ‘Turn the guest room into a library’ is go!
We ordered some white painted wooden shelves and brackets from Ikea. We carefully measured and marked a neat line as near to the ceiling as we could go whilst still fitting large paperbacks.
Action shot!
Then, after putting up the third shelf we found that despite our careful measuring, using a spirit level and making a template, going easy on the crumbling plaster, accounting for wobbly walls and lack of a right angle in the corner, etc. etc. the fixings on the brackets varied by a couple of milimetres. So we’ve still ended up with an uneven line of shelves. Cue forehead slapping. Still, looks great, doesn’t it?
Slightly wonky shelves on very wonky walls
We’re considering painting the shelves and brackets to match the walls, so they blend in a little. But I’m very happy with them anyway. I’m also tempted to arrange the books by colour. One day, when I’ve finished all the other jobs.
Put a book on it.
Boy do we love our bed. It’s served us well. We bought it when we moved into our first unfurnished flat about 9 years ago. It’s a super king size (that’s big) with a firm, memory foam mattress. But… it takes up too much space in this room and looks daft.
So it’s going on Gumtree. Let’s see if we can get a few quid towards a new one. Along with it are the bolt-on bedside tables and the matching chest of drawers.
For now we’re using the guest bed and various bits of furniture to replace the bedside tables. I totally get the mismatched but also artfully paired furniture look so many vintage and scandi homes do so well… but this is just whatever we have cobbled together. It’s not exactly a ‘look’. This bed is a standard double with a standard mattress. I was expecting we’d get in each other’s way after years of acres of space, but so far there’ve been no turning-over-in-the-middle-of-the-night mishaps. And neither of us has fallen out of bed. Though my back would like my firm mattress back.
This weekend we’ll be swapping the woefully inadequate slatted blinds for blackouts so we can sleep past 6am, and add gauzy curtains for privacy when the blinds are up.
Next task here is to renovate the old chest of drawers so we can start using it. Then we’ll turn the shelving in the built-in cupboard into hanging rails for a temporary wardrobe. We could do with some pictures on the walls, too.
Long term we’ll get a new bed and bedside tables plus a substantial wardrobe built into the alcove. For now, though, this is it. Other, more pressing projects, come first.