Since the window sill project completed a few weeks ago, I’ve moved onto building a small bookcase for our climbing guidebooks with the left over lengths of wood. I had a rough idea in my head of a design that might work, so made a small ‘mock up’ version of the joints to see if they’d work. After the (mostly) successful test run and after quite a lot of planeing and sanding, I selected some suitable pieces with some nice looking grains.

With Grandad’s set square and dad’s old stools, I got to work, measuring out and rounding off the edges.

My plans changed a few times as I came up with better ideas or thoughts and kept swapping bits of wood, but eventually I got as far as I could go. I was about to make the final ‘joints’ but in the end decided that it would be a better looking finish with a ‘machine straight’ cut, so spent an evening over with Matt at his workshop.

I’d pre-marked the ‘cuts’, then using the table saw, we made the incisions and chiselled out the remaining section that the saw blade couldn’t reach.

By this point it was pretty cold and late at night, but we pressed on and managed to get it all cut as I hoped. The question was, would it all fit together afterwards!? We were both surprised and delighted in equal amounts when it seemed to fit together!

I transported it home ‘flat packed’ and back at The Cottage, all I had to do was ‘re-assemble’.

Two of the joints slotted in perfectly, while the top and bottom shelves required a little extra persuasion! – But in the end they fitted very snugly.

It needed a little final adjustment to fit over the skirting board, then all that was required was to fill the shelves! No screws or glue required. It all just slotted into place.

Very pleasing to have somewhere for the books to live and more importantly, on a bit more of the famous Afromosia that ‘came in handy one day’ from Dad’s legacy collection!