We're Casing the Joint...

Book Casing that is.

We're in the midst of building our first piece from the amazing site Knock Off Wood. If you've not browsed her site, go now, I'll wait for you to get back.

Can you believe her???

I've considered myself pretty fearless when it comes to home improvement, decorating, crafting and what not but Ana takes it to a whole new level.  And thanks to her doing so, I've got a whole new obsession. I've got a bookmark file a mile long of her projects that I want to tackle. But for now, we're starting with this: The Cameron Bookcase.

 (Image Source: knockoffwood.blogspot.com)

We've been looking for a bookcase for the odd space on the main level of our house where the down stairs go down, the stairs up, go (surprise surprise) up and the bathroom, living room and family room all come together. I've found a variety of solutions, ranging from $150-$700. I just couldn't justify that cost.

We've already gotten started, and I am trilled to say that the supplies for this came in just under $70.00 not including paint (because I have no idea how I'm going to finish it just yet.)

I'll be documenting the process of pulling this off here, and here is what I've learned already - I'm so happy that my husband wanted to cut the big pieces for this. In theory, I could have done it, but I really didn't want to. We work so well on projects together and I was thankful to him manning the band saw while I was cutting the 1x2's and 1x3's on our miter saw.

Couple of other things:

• I'm making it just a little wider, 4" wider. Otherwise it would have pissed me off forever that I made a bookcase and didn't get EXACTLY what I wanted.
• For that reason, or maybe not, I needed 7 lengths of the 1"x2" rather than 6. (Wish I realized that while I was at Lowe's. I'll be going back tomorrow for the last piece.)
• And more importantly, on the cutting diagram that Ana's shows. There are 2 shelf pieces at 11.5x37" and the cutting instructions it asks for 3. The cutting list is right, you'll need 3, not 2. 
• READ all of Ana's instructions before going shopping, trust me, she's got notes in there that will make you happy you read everything first.
• We're toying with the idea of adding doors to the top shelf to hide some of the clutter. Not sure about it... but thinking of it.

So, stay tuned. All but 2 of the pieces for this are cut and waiting for me in the garage. I've got the day off and hope to devote some time to sanding everything and maybe, just maybe putting it together.