The Bookstye: After

First let me say I'm really not one that should buy things that ship flat. Here is where my lack of patience really shows. I've never actually had to put anything together before so this was my first real big foray into turning something 3 inches high into something four and a half feet high.

When I took all the pieces to my new CSN bookshelf out of the box, I was surprised at how sturdy the shelves actually were. I guess I was expecting something closer to IKEA standards, like particle board, so I was pleasantly surprised.

Screwing on the main legs proved to be a little difficult, especially after my dumb ass screwed them on backwards. Note to self: in order to screw the back board in, the holes need to face back, not forwards. I had a couple issues lining the leg holes up and screwing them in but I think I got them in good enough. The thing hasn't collapsed under its own weight yet so it's good.
The shelves themselves went in fine and I just had issues again screwing on the small legs that attached to the bottom shelf. One of the legs, no matter how I finagled it (no, it wasn't on backwards), the holes really didn't match up so I almost has to create new holes for the screws or screw them in on an angle. It could have been my own impatience that I didn't take enough time to line up the holes but from what I could tell, they just weren't going to match up.

The backboard was a bit of a pain as well. I had a hard time screwing the screws in straight through the wood and into the metal holes. I'll really chalk this one up to my own impatience because after the legs, and all the hard screwing (shut up), my hands hurt and it was a superficial piece of the puzzle that I just wanted to slap on. I was able to get in the screw on the top and the bottom and I just sort of pushed them in along the sides and bam! It was all set.

I do really like the adjusters on the legs. My wood floors are nice and uneven so it was great to be able to adjust those so my bookcase didn't wobble. And overall, it really came out nice and it's been working great!


Pre-books. Despite the state of my hands, I really like the way it looks. It's very put together, streamline, not cheap looking or anything. I'm really happy with it. Next time I'll have my dad put it together.


With books. It's not as big as I originally thought it was going to be but it holds my big books, which I like. I need to really re-arrange the shelves and I might end up stacking my smaller-bound books so they can all fit and it's not so top heavy.


The TBR pile has been consolidated into one monstrous pile. The books on the far left are review copies. Next pile over is mostly BEA books from this year. The next stack is a mix of BEA from this year and last year and the last two piles are books that I've accrued that I want to read. Dear god. The two short stacks in the front: the further front are giveaway copies from BEA and the back pile are just more books I want to read. Awesome.


And my DVD rack actually gets to be used for DVDs. To bad for it's now-constant tilt to the side. Awesome. The top rack is TV shows (pretty much the only way I watch any TV), second rack is my "classics" (read: 80s and early 90s movies), third rack and the left of the fourth rack are just random DVDs that didn't fit into the other two. On the right of the fourth rack are my cartoon movies. Yeah. I'm, like, 10 on the inside. And on the very bottom are the couple of Wii games I have.

The chaos has quieted.