A New Shelving Unit: As Good as Being Present

A few days ago Neil and Rebecca realized that they needed more storage space. After a brief search and period of contemplation, they settled on a shelving unit that is on sale this week at Canadian Tire.

This morning Neil and I made our way over to the local Canadian Tire to pick one up. Amazingly the shopping experience was relatively quick and painless (I wasn't paying).

Not to long ago we brought the shelving unit back to our apartment. After a few minutes of dilly-dallying (meaning until the end of the Germany-Serbia World Cup game) we started to unpack the the shelving unit. At this point I thought that our readers would really probably like to follow along with the assembly process through a session of live-blogging, so here we are. Check back to follow our progress.

10:35 - Neil and Rebecca's bedroom has been rearranged so that he assembly of the shelving unit can take place on site. We have also pulled all of the parts of the shelving unit out of the box and placed them at various points around the perimeter of the room or in the adjacent hallway. My sense is that right now Neil is counting the hinges and screws to make sure that we have everything before we start.

10:37 - I am now busy live blogging while Neil continues his preparations. If he doesn't hurry up I may end up just taking a nap.

10:40 - I am now back in the room. We just discussed how best to cover this momentous event - we agreed live-blogging would be better than a time-lapse as we missed the key unboxing phase of the process.



10:52 - The assembly process has now started in earnest. We have attached two pieces to one another and are about to attach the third.

11:01 - We now have 5 pieces completely or partially attached to one another. We also have started streaming the US-Slovenia World Cup game via CBC.ca.

11:20 - Things are starting to take shape now, both sides have been added. That being said, we are still a ways away from being done. In other news, it seems that the US are now down 0-1 to Slovenia.

11:28 - We just popped the top on. I think we will soon need to flip the unit over to add the structural cardboard to the back.

11:40 - Neil is now putting the nails into the structural cardboard on the back of the unit. We will need to pound in about 40 nails in total. I guess once we are done with this step we will have to flip it over again and then add the front doors and a few more shelves. I guess if I am hopeful and optimistic I might suggest that the end is in sight.

11:44 - Slovenia just scored a second goal, really putting the US in a tough spot. Oh, and Neil is still pounding away at the structural cardboard nails.

12:13 - The doors have been attached and the unit is now upright, though not quite in position. Hopefully the door hinges won't require much adjustment as I think that it won't be particularly straightforward to adjust these doors.

12:18 - Neil is now in the midst of attaching the unit to the wall to take advantage of the included fall arrest system.

12:20 - Neil is emitting some strange grunting sounds during the fall arrest construction process. Pretty graphic if you ask me.

12:22 - The handles are now on the doors.

12:29 - We just adjusted the doors, which was a little uncomfortable and unpleasant but not too bad.

12:33 - I think that we are basically done, though eventually a few more shelves will be inserted. I think that this likely won't be done until Rebecca returns and can be consulted on shelf arrangement and what exactly will be placed on the shelves. So I guess that is the end of this live-blogging experience.



Here is the unit in its almost final form.

Just what we needed, more space for plants

Shortly after moving into this apartment I realized that if we really wanted to fill the place with plants we would need a number of shelving units on which to store the plants to maximize their access to what limited sunlight we have in the apartment. This plan was partly realized last fall when Neil and I purchased a number of shelving units for plants that we have subsequently placed in the living room.

At some point I realized that if I had something in my window I would really be able to take full advantage of the light that my room gets, and not just be restricted to what I can fit along the bottom of my windowsill. For many months this was largely just an idea, how I might go about realizing it was not even something I really thought about.

More recently, the past few weeks or so, I have really been thinking more about how I might go about creating or acquiring such a shelving unit. Eventually I settled on a basic concept, though the specific of the design were still up in the air.

A few days ago I started in earnest looking for the necessary wood and trying to think about some of the specific elements of the design. Gradually the detail started to come together.

Yesterday I found a sign post and I knew I was in business.



Later in the evening I walked by a construction site and found another piece of scrap wood (it was clearly scrap and not part of the project). With the wood in hand the shelf really started to take shape in my mind. With relative ease I figure the rest of the design out. The only thing delaying my construction of the unit was that I was not in possession of the necessary hardware, which I got around to purchasing this evening. The supplies I picked up were 50 hooks and 13 feet of cheap chain.

After sunset, not that this is particularly important as far as the general narrative is concerned, I got around to sanding the wood and then assembling the various components. The most time consuming matter was cutting the chain into lengths with the same number of links. With a little bit of planning I was able to minimize the amount of chain I wasted. All in all I think I did a pretty good job as only two full links and some scraps were left from the original 13 feet when I was done.



Not long after I finished cutting the chain I was able to assemble and install the shelf. The feature I am most proud of is the differing length shelves, which should allow taller plants to fit at the edges of the window. At first I was worried that such a shelf might limit my ability to store taller plants in my bedroom.



For those of you who might be interested, this should give a slightly clearer image of exactly how the unit has been constructed.



Within moments of installing the shelf I was able to fill it with plants, most of which had been in the living room.



So for those residents of our apartment not interested in having a living room infested with plants this new shelving unit may actually be a good thing. Now I have the capability to store more of the plants in my room, where they will get better light.

A Few Quick Notes 113

-While today has been generally overcast it is still quite pleasant. There is a slight breeze and the temperature is warm enough that one does not need a shirt, but not hot enough that breaking into a sweat is not an immediate problem. As long as the grey skies don't turn into rain I will be satisfied.

-While leaving the library today a friend and I saw several stacks of chairs near the free book box. As I have associated this location with free goods my immediate thought was free chairs. As we approached the stacks a sign was located that suggested that the chairs were in fact free and that people were encouraged to take as many as they wanted. Because of weight restrictions I was only able to take three, one less than I would have liked.

The chairs are not the most stylish chairs but their wooden frames seem sturdy, if old, and the red vinyl covering undamaged.

-With one of the new chairs in the living room it seemed the right time to assemble a $10 shelving unit that I purchased last Friday at Canadian Tire. Hopefully we will be able to place such things as plants and games on this shelf in the living room. While we have a few games we will have to get cracking on the plants front.

-Shortly after we moved in to our new apartment I noticed a mouse. That same night of the first sighting there were two other sightings. While we were not able to determine whether it was one mouse in three places or three mice we did go to the building manager to inform them of the problem. After several days an exterminator visited and laid a few traps.

After several days with no activity I was beginning to believe that the mouse or mice may have moved on to greener pastures (namely, the other apartments on our floor). This, it turned out, was not the case. Several nights ago I was awoken by the what I presume was at least one of the mice.

The next day I decided to place near the sight of the disturbance one of the inhumane glue traps left behind by the exterminator. As I did not want to have my pillow fall into the trap I pulled my pad into the centre of the floor. After several hours there was no change in the situation and I presumed that it would be quite similar when I returned from work.

Amazingly, one of the first things that I noticed upon my return from work was that the trap was no longer where I left it. My first thought was that it had been dragged somewhere, maybe my bed, by the mouse. After a relatively thorough examination of the area I determined that this was not the case and that the trap had been removed.

Shortly after waking up this morning Nithum was able to confirm that the trap had been removed. Apparently at about 10:00 or 11:00 last night he heard some noises coming from my room. Upon closer inspection they found the mouse in the trap. He and a friend then released the mouse in a neighbouring parking lot (apparently cooking oil does the trick).

Unfortunately I think that this may not be the end of our problems. While looking at some of the other traps I noticed that some of the poison in the living room was disturbed. Hopefully over the next several days we will learn that that was the only mouse and that we are living in a vermin free environment.

-Last night was another busy night at Thomson House. Hopefully tonight will be the same way. The only problem that I have noticed with working both Thursday and Friday is that I am quite physically exhausted by Saturday. Hopefully within a few weeks I will have managed to build up a level of tolerance that I don't yet have.