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The plight of adequate shelving inside homes is generally solved by buying shelving from shops. I will never understand architecture that supplies multitude toilets but no shelving. We, after our move from a place where the owner had installed so many shelving one could almost have sub-let to small Turkish families all the space taken up by it. Acres of book shelves!
After initially storing most of our books in milk crates, finally got some second hand antique bookshelves. Take the antique with a grain of salt, merely some dark stain applied to a light coloured background giving an aged look where perhaps only about thirty years might have passed. None the less, many books were hopefully shelved on those during its history and I have no reason to believe that only Car magazines or Playboys ever adorned those wooden surfaces. Here and there an attempt at patching the framework showed up, further proof that they had been used and that at least some time had passed. This is a great consolation and a good omen when buying book shelves.
After many hours by Helvi of unpacking the milk crates, many books now found a more substantial, and hopefully final resting place. The milk crates were also a remnant of past history when I used to roam the Inner West, at the crack of dawn, for milk crates when I was making home brew beer in the garage.
The space for books on those shelves was still somewhat scarce and we went for another hunt. This time we drove again to ‘Dirty Jane’ where we had secured the previous shelving.
I noticed a couple of boxes that had a ticket written and pinned to them, ‘bee boxes, and kauri pine’ and ‘dove tailed’, thirty dollars each. I suppose, the bees, not in their wildest dreams, could ever have thought that their homes would end up shelving books. There you have it though. No more honey just books.


Call that shelving! I have just done a mental calculation of how much book shelving exists in our dwelling and it is close to 50 metres of the stuff. None of it is antique of course (who could afford that much). This is the main reason we cannot possibly move house. PS: for the smartarses here, yes the shelves are all chock full of books!
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No Viv, they for sure aren’t shelves; they are bee boxes (!), and hubby loves them…I can’t put all his favourites in the garage…(maybe later on)…shh
We found two sets of book cases for the living room, but I still need something for the bedroom, the garage is still pretty full of stuff.
We had a garden shed built for the bikes and the lawn mower…anyhow the place is starting to look like ours, we love the house and the garden, and have met the neighbours, all of them nice!
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Oo, Viv!
Anyway, sadly I have accumulated three libraries in my life and each has gone the moving way… through moving.
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I know that of course. But, Helvi, Gerard does refer to ‘shelving’. I thought I was, I was trying to be ……. a bit funny.
So pleased that you are very happy with new home and surrounds and neighbours. Hope they know how lucky they are to have you as neighbours.
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You are too kind Viv.
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I always enjoy your yarns G but I’m really enjoying your various works. Would it be possible to repost the original “Blue Illusions” etching at a larger size so that we may all enjoy it that little bit more?
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Dovetailed Kauri? It’s such a soft wood that cutting the dovetails would be very exacting, no doubt done by hand, not by router. It’s fabulously resistant to all manner of insects, except for a particular borer that feeds on the timber for a short time, leaving interesting insect trails in the wood. The floors in our old house are Kauri and these patterns appeared when we sanded the floors.
Yes, Gez, there is an interest in your etchings!
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My thought exactly, Big M. How so? Carved?
Not much dimension there to be creating dovetails.
🙂
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Bee box a lulu ?
She’s my baby !
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Ha ha, great response.
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Thanks, Gez. Nice to have a two line seven word comment appreciated.
My way of saying how much I enjoyed your vignette.
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One could put baby Lulu in the bee box at a pinch…
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Hootchy Kootchy Henry from Hawaii?
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Perfectly lovely! Whatever! But dovetailed! We suppose from this ticket of sale the bee boxes are not stapled, nailed or only glued!
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No, they are dove-tailed and my reason for buying them. Now-a-days everything seems to be held together with staples, glue or little nuts screwed tight with the inevitable Allen key. The bees were well looked after with proper boxes.
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Are these etchings and drawings that you are putting up, Gerard?
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Hello Lehan,
I am chuffed about your question.
They are etchings but the bookshelf of the bee boxes is a photo.. Etchings are normally just in black but I have done some in colour as well.
The drawings I’ll put up if there is an interest.
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Yes, there is. Well at least it was a bit more fulsome than “yo”.
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