Sunday 16 August 2009

More Home Improvements

Years ago, when I was single (and had more spare time and money), I subscribed to various editions of leather bound 'heirloom' books from Easton Press. Altogether I bought approximately 200 books, which cost around A$100 each.



Since buying our current home seven years ago I've intended to convert our lounge room into a 'library' by building some book cases into one half of the room, but haven't got around to it yet. The books are currently scattered around the lounge room in various locations.



Last week I did manage to get one step closer to starting work on this project by buying six flat packs of DIY 'six cube bookcase' kits from Aldi for A$100 each.



These bookcases will provide more than enough storage space for my leather bound books, and for display of some of my collection of coins and other 'collectibles'. I plan to stack two of the bookcases on top of each other to make a 4x3 cube unit 1.6m high on each side of an alcove in the lounge room. I'll then cut the remaining two kits in half to install 1x4 cube units either side the large teak wood carving I bought in Singapore twenty years ago. The wood carving isn't as deep as the bookcases, so I'll be able to mount a flat screen HD TV above the carving and run the data and power cables behind the carving. I'm not sure if I'll leave the cube bookcases 'open' or enclose each cube with tracks and sliding glass doors or hinged glass doors. I can probably leave the glazing for 'phase two' of this project ;) In any case, I won't be starting on this work until after I've finished installing the new pool fencing and done this year's tax returns...

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful Books, but I think you spent an awful lot for them. Here in the USA I have been finding them at the local auction houses for about 200 to 250 US dollars for about 15 to 20 books. The most I have seen boxes of these same books go for at auction was 325 US dollars for about 15 books. I like your book case idea. Hope you will post pics when its complete.
adomesticprincess in Oregon USA

David @ DINKS Finance said...

Would love to have a library in my house one day! I like your setup!

-DC

enoughwealth@yahoo.com said...

Yes, I spent too much on these books ;)

They cost US$70 or so each when new, and instantly depreciated more than 50% (if I had tried to resell them 'used' just after buying them). However, on the upside they are in perfect condition, and I only bought the volumes that appealed to me.

If I have some spare room in my bookcases I may even look around for some second hand leather books at auction - I did once buy a set (28 volumes) of brand new leather bound Funk & Wagnall's encyclopaedias for around $120 when they were on clearance sale.

Robert said...

Nice books. I still have about 100K baseball cards in a closet. They increased in value nicely in the 80s but actually now have lost value. Kids today don't care about Hank Aaron and Willie Mays. Its ashame. Reading this makes me want to build some sort of display too - thanks.