The key job this time was to use shelving materials rescued from their former home near Oxford to make their new home feel like theirs - you can't have a home without books on shelves, can you? As always, the problem with doing jobs like this miles from home is deciding on which tools and materials I need to take. This is part of the collection that went in the car this time:
(If you've spotted the rainwater pipe, that was for a different job!) We knew that we didn't have enough wooden shelving to complete the project this time, but the challenge was to get the uprights, the original brackets and some additional newly purchased brackets installed so that we could decide how much more timber to buy.
It's important with this kind of shelving system to get the uprights in exactly the right place on the wall. They can be unforgiving, as the metal is pre-drilled and all the screwholes must be securely fastened, otherwise the strength of the shelving is compromised. There's no room for botched drilling of the wall leading to out-of-line or wobbly wallplugs.
A tool I bought at a bargain price years ago came in very handy. It's a laser level, and it was cheap because it came without a tripod support. However, it exactly fits my camera tripod and when properly adjusted, casts a red laser-generated line on an exact horizontal level. Here I'm demonstrating how it was used a while ago to line up the power sockets on a wall of our kitchen.
Fortunately, the marking, drilling, plugging and screwing went well. It turned out to be a very good thing that I had included my small angle grinder in the toolkit, as the new brackets needed to be trimmed slightly to fit into the uprights, but soon we had the existing shelves in place - and then books! I've measured up, and I'll be back soon with the additional timber.
As Anthony Powell wrote, Books do Furnish a Room.
