One Hundred not out... *

           Today has been like old times. It's been bothering me that for a study, there aren't that many books in here, so I thought I'd get some shelves up and move the books upstairs. Of course, the money's run out, so I'm doing this on the cheap, and the cheapest shelving I can come up with is wooden cladding. I bought two packs from B & Q at £5.24 each, and cobbled the rest together with off-cuts that I have lying about.

The first thing was to drop a plumb line down the wall and get a nice perpendicular line. Then I drilled the wall, stuck in rawlplugs and screwed on a couple of short battens. Next, I fixed a cladding board to these battens to provide a side-board.

After a little judicious measuring, I glued and screwed supports on the inside of the side-board and on the facing wall. It was a case of plumb lines, spirit levels and a T-square to get the whole thing square and true.

Because I'm using cladding, which is thin and not very strong, I've had to add vertical supports at short distances to compensate. It's the old engineering thing about materials that are weak under stress but strong under compression. The weight of the books on the shelves will help to hold the frame together.

Then, it was keep doing the same thing for each shelf, until they were all up.

When it was complete, it's leave it alone until the glue sets (overnight). Tomorrow I'll finish the fancy bits and maybe have time to start varnishing. I don't think it's too bad for a tenner.

Whoa - I've just added the photos and it looks a bit wonky. It isn't - I think it might be because the supports are slightly staggered and the perspective is playing tricks. The big temptation is to get some books on shelves - but it needs varnishing first or it'll never get done.

* ... and that, gentle reader, makes one hundred posts. Thank you for continuing to read.