Simple Bookshelf

When we moved into our new house one of the first things that caught our eye was a large empty space.We assume this was meant for a TV, but we already had a TVstand that we did not want to dispose of. Therefor this large empty space was left unused. It was too high and too deep to be wasted on one layer of books or decorative items and so we tried to build a small bookshelf.

To make this I used the one foot wide block wood strips that I still had. I used three initial strips to make a H shaped structure. I screwed in the horizontal piece from the sides using three screws per side. Once the H shaped structure was made I measured out the width of the empty space and then made a wooden piece of that length. I fixed this on top of the H shaped structure again using screws from above. As I used thin guide holes the screws were quite firm. I thought some sort of partitioning of the top would look nice. I had curved pieces of wood that were remaining from the curves I cut out of the children's table. I placed these on the top and screwed them in from below to get the two curved partitions on the shelf.
To get the finish I used primer, metal putty to fill the big holes and finally wood putty to get a smooth finish. I think used two coats of a brown glossy paint.
The finished bookshelf now houses CDs, books, cassettes and our little fish tank with our lone goldfish 'inky' in it. It actually holds a lot of books. We understood how much it holds only when we removed all the books and stacked them on the table.
I now have a half a litre of brown paint to finish off in addition to the purple and pink.

Children's table

After making a high chair, the next item on the agenda was making a baby table. This was meant for our son to write, draw and do other developmentally correct activities. Besides I could only buy half a litre cans of purple and pink paint and had about three fourth of them left behind after making the high chair. I had pieces of block wood lying around still and had to use them up

To make the top : I used some a remnant of old laminate covered ply. The laminate was chipped in some areas and so I enthusiastically decided to remove the entire laminate. It was not an easy task. Armed with a hammer and chisel on the balcony floor I went to work chipping of the laminate. It was not an easy task but the laminate was eventually removed. This left a lot off unevenness that had to be made smooth with wood putty

side view of the table

Under side of table showing cross bars

Final assembly

To make the sides of the table I cut a 1.5 feet by about 4 feet piece of block wood in half. This gave me two pieces of about 2 feet high and 1.5 feet broad. I drew some free hand curves on this and cut them out using a jigsaw to give it a curved look.

For the upper cross bars I cut out a 2 inch wide strip of blockwood and divided it into two.

Table in use 

The lower cross bar was about 4 inches wide. Almost all the wood was about 1 inch thick blockwood.

The inial holes were drilled through and I used 1.5 inch wood screws to fix them. Counter sinks had to be drilled using a larger drill bit.

One tip that I have realized is that if one scrapes the screw on a candle and gets some wax on the screw, it lubricates the screw and decreases the work of screwing in. I cannot remember who told me this though.

Two screws each for each side of the upper  cross bars and three screws for each side of the lower cross bar and the frame was made. 

I then screwed the top on to the frame, making sure that all the screws were inserted through the cross bars from below.

Once the final piece was assembled, I opened out the whole project, individually primed, puttied and painted two coats of purple and pink paint.

Well I suppose misuse is better than disuse...

I made the putty using the putty powder that I think is some kind of chalk powder and dissolving it in white enamel paint. This was a bit difficult as block wood has a lot of holes. The best thing to do I think is to fix a bit of beading to cover the holes in the section of block wood. I asked my local hardware guy if he could suggest some ready made putty. He suggested the one used for cars. This is available as a paste and is not very expensive. I got a tin of it and it hardened fast, and was easy to fix all the holes. The only drawback is that it did not sand smooth. The smoothness had to be ensured while spreading and unlike the traditionally made putty, when I sanded the metal putty, I would get uneven patches. I therefore ended up filling the holes with car putty and using traditional putty over it to get a smooth finish. I could have avoided all the puttying by covering the table with laminate, but I have not worked with laminate as yet.

The final table is quite stable and matches the previous high chair.

Of course developmentally correct activities are difficult to enforce. We use the table to keep our telephone on. My kids stand on it when given the opportunity.