Girl on Fire: Challenge accepted

[As seen in Creston News Advertiser, June 5, 2014]

Recently, Kate Padilla, a friend of mine who is also a staff reporter for Spencer’s newspaper Spencer Daily Reporter, started an all-things blog (www.katepadilla.net) that includes do-it-yourself projects, recipes and notes about her life with her husband in Iowa.

I was perusing the site, looking at the yummy food photos and interesting book reviews she was posting when I came across a post about her drowning in books from publishers and having less and less space to store them. In the blog she posted a photo of herself standing in front of a giant bookcase.

The bookcase stood taller than Kate, with nearly every cubicle jam-packed with novels. The shelving is slanted, making each cubicle diamond-shaped, and the bookcase is squeezed between two short walls jutting out from the wall behind, the darkened wood fitting cozily.

As soon as I saw that blog with the attached photo, I decided I want to build a bookcase.

When I was younger, my grandfather built me a bookshelf, like he would do for all his grandchildren. It has four shelves and embellishment at the top. While I imagine I don’t have nearly as many books as Kate has, over the years my books have been overflowing so much I’ve had to stack them doubly on the shelves, even stuffing small ones on top of the others if there was space.

As well as Kate’s blog, this was reason enough to need more shelf space. So, why not? Building one myself would be cheaper than purchasing one. I will gain the experience of building something for myself that I know I will use until I can’t anymore. And, it will be a fun experience for me.

After reading Kate’s post, I began a Google search for interesting bookcases. Needless to say, I have found so many that I would absolutely love to own, but might be a bit out of my creative and technical skill sets.

So, my new challenge is this: build an easy, but not plain, bookcase to brighten things up and help the clutter in my living space.

Will I be able to complete it? Probably. I may be borrowing tools from friends, as I have none of my own, but the obstacles will make it more fun. Will it stand the test of the hundreds of books I plan to shelve? I hope so. But, there’s nothing like testing your project when it’s done and seeing it actually worked.

So, what do I say to this new goal of mine? Challenge accepted.