I came, I saw, Ikea
I am probably way happier than I should be to have installed two new bookcases in my office. Carolyn and I built two 80 cm wide Ikea Billy bookcases, and put risers (height extensions on them), and added an extra shelf to each one. Total new bookshelf space in our home: 8*76 cm, or 600 cm -- over six meters, or just about 20 feet of space for more books. Yay!
And I've been actually organizing books: getting all the titles about game theory together on one shelf, all the books about future space-travel ideas together on another. I'm finding books in my collection I'd totally forgotten I owned.
Yes, I love books. :)
The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site
Posted by Rob on Sunday, March 16, 2008
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8 comments
8 Comments:
I have got to get those new shelves I was gifted for Christmas finished and assembled...
Hey Rob, Nice aquisition!
I bought a Billy bookcase in Pine (the taller ones)and paid I think $200 new back in 1992! Does Ikea still give you the tools to put them together?
Jim Shannon
Who doesn't like books? Wait, don't answer that...I don't want to meet someone who doesn't like books *glares*
Books deserve shelves. I have too many books unfortunately, and I can't fit any more shelves in my room. But one day I swear I'll have one of those cool libraries with the rolling stairs!
Hi, Jim. I own 17 Billy bookcases of various heights and widths; I've been buying them since 1984, I think. I have many in the pine -- but Ikea discontinued that finish, damn it all. My more recent purchases have been in a birch finish, but now they've discontinued THAT (at least here in Canada) as well. In fact, these most recent two were a special order (they still had some beech left in the warehouse, but I had to pay to have them shipped to me -- cost over a hundred bucks in shipping!).
By the way, Robert Charles Wilson has his office done in Billy bookcases, too -- but he's got the brown/black finish, which looks really sharp, I must say.
It seems Ikea also has brass lighting extentions that fit underneath the top portion of the shelf but it's been a few years since I've been in an Ikea since before my wife had her car. I don't know if they still have the Billy lighting extentions anymore.
Thanks for the photo. I would have added another thinner shelf to the other side there just to balance things out. But since this was a special order and all...
I like the brown black finish as well but theres nothing like Billy pine. I lost the 1000+ books I had in the 1970's but over the last 2 years it's been my goal to buy 1 SF/F book a week. I'm right on track. I'll stop when I hit 3,000 books :-)
Jim Shannon
Jim, those aren't my bookcases in the photo; that's a photo from the Ikea online catalog. :)
[Jealous—no room for more bookshelves in my apartment, and those we have are FULL FULL FULL]
I'm finding books in my collection I'd totally forgotten I owned.
I know the feeling. Back when I was day-trading, I realized a book Mike Flynn had recommended several years earlier would probably have some useful insights, so I went looking. Couldn't find it anywhere (new, used, in piles of books being thrown out). Found one listed on the web for something like $150, which I wasn't really willing to pay. Then one day, I was on the step-ladder to fiddle with something at the top of my reference book case, and cast my eye down one shelf… and wouldn't you know it? That book I'd been looking for for months was sitting right at the end of the shelf (actually standing there, spine out and everything, not buried behind a front layer of books). I guess I'd picked it up at a used book store a few years before for (according to the penciled-in price) $3.00. What a find! And on my own shelf! But oh, those months of frustration…
Anyone ever buy the glass doors for the Billy bookcases? If so, how are they?
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