Bookcase

After realising that New Zealand earthquake proof building means that the walls are not sturdy enough to hang bookshelves off, we abandoned the idea of a self-built customised bookshelving unit on the red wall.

Thomas then bought a large bookcase on Trademe. When we went to pick it up, at some point we realised that the guy selling it is another soil scientist, so we gossiped for a while about our respective colleagues. He also seemed pleased that his bookcase would be holding quality books.

The bookcase was pretty big and only just fitted on the trailer. It was also immensely heavy. When we were trying to 1) lift it at all and 2) bring it into the house, the bookcase proved in fact too tall to fit through any of the doors into the house.
Not to be put off, we put it into the garage, where it just fitted leaning at an angle. Although the bookcase wasn’t meant to be taken apart, Thomas then took it apart the next day, brought all individual parts into the red room, and put it back together. We then proceeded to put it up against the wall. Somewhere along the way the case scratched the ceiling, and our visual assessment was that the bookcase appeared indeed taller than the room. Hmmm… This was without taking into account the ornamental plaster between ceiling and walls which takes away another 10 cm or so of height for a bookcase.

So the bookcase went down again, taken apart again, stored in the garage again. Thomas took the too long parts to work, sawed them shorter in the workshop, and put it all back together again. Only to realise that the middle panels should be slightly shorter than the outer ones to account for the topshelf to sit on top. Not wanting to waste more time at work, he thought this was a good excuse to buy a circular saw.

The next weekend more cm’s were thus sawed off the middle panels, and for the fourth time Thomas put together the bookcase. Finally we were able to have it upright at the wall, and further attached it to make it earthquake proof.

And then 17 months after packing up our books in Wageningen, we could unpack them. There were some happy surprises, and also some thoughts of “why did I not sell this book at Koningsdag?!”, but finally the red room feels more “home” and with a soul. 

Nina's books and photo albums

Thomas trying to fit his books

Nevertheless, I am not moving those books ever again.