Low-Cost Shelving

Supposing you finally got that stereo system out of your cousin Lou--you got to find a place to put the thing. The sitting room in your trailer is a good place, right next to the TV, but how are you going to stack it up there, huh? You got your big pile of magazines, bowling trophies, and boxes of whatever all over the place. You just know if you balance that stereo on the pile the whole damn thing is going to fall over the moment you step away, and you'll have wasted your $20, or however much Lou wheedled out of you for that piece, and it was probably too much.

What you need is to get organized and build yourself a shelf! You can put your boxes and fishing magazines on the floor, and the stereo on top where it will be safe. Not only that, you'll be able to reach the knobs real easy and read all that fine printing next to the fancy buttons.

Now of course, you could haul off to the local Home Depot and buy yourself a shelf, spending way too much on some cheap fibre-board pre-fab piece of soggy cow chip, but that just wouldn't be the same as applying a bit of all-American ingenuity and know-how to this problem. Save yourself the money and do the deed yourself! I'll show you how, and it won't cost you a dime.

Your basic shelf is a plank of wood held up in some way. Now you got two ways you can go about this. You can nail the wood into the wall, or you can build up from the floor. You got to keep in your head that either approach has its own benefits and problems. Nailing the plank into the wall is more permanent, and leaves more room underneath, but it's also harder move around in case you have to re-organize your stuff. Also, if you mess up you're going to have some butt-ugly holes in the wall that'll just make you look stupid.

Let's go the easy route and build from the ground up.

You'll need to find yourself some good cinder bricks or some kind of heavy square box-like things. Those big cement bricks they used for building the feed shop would be perfect. In a pinch you can use stacks of books, if you have them, but be careful to put them so no one can read the covers and want to take them out. That'll mess your shelf up real quick. Phonebooks would be an ideal solution too.

You'll also need some planks for your shelf. You can get good pieces of wood from pallets, or sometimes from a building site if you're lucky. If you leave the nails in you got ready-made hooks for hanging ball caps or belt buckles.

Pile up them bricks on the floor, making sure they're good and solid. Here's a tip: if your floor isn't too straight--and what floor is--you can shim up your blocks level with bits of cardboard or chunks of wood lying about. It's that easy.

Now if you got lots of bricks and lots of pieces of wood you can build up a real nice entertainment centre, layer by layer. Make sure each brick is good and solid and isn't moving anywhere before laying a plank or two across the top.

Before you know it you'll have your shelf up, customized exactly the way you want it, and it'll probably last a million years longer than anything you could buy pre-made. Aren't you glad you did it yourself?

Join Our Mailing List

Send This Story To A Friend

This fictional story about satire is intended for adults.		The World Leader in Canadian humour, humor, parody, and satire.
Tell us what you thought. Visit our Message Boards.	HOME \| DISCLAIMER \| ABOUT US	Copyright 2005-2001 The Toque Entertainment.