Assembly Required

One of the N.U.T.s I wanted to finish before the kids went back to school was to get shelving for their rooms. What prompted this "little" project was the crash heard round the block, Lauren's shelf fell off the wall, back at the end of June. Since then her trophies have been sitting on her floor in a laundry basket.

So, as a family outing, the last weekend before school started, we were going to get shelves! I decided free standing was the way to go it has a better flexibility factor, Lauren likes to move her room around a lot! The plan was hatched before Phil hurt his knee, so after a slight adjustment in my plan, I strapped on my fit flops, credit card in hand and headed out on my mission - shelves! Or in the event of failure - chocolate.

Success at the first store! I love Target! They had two bookcases, 72" high by 23" wide with 5 shelves, when these are full it is time to get rid of "stuff". They required assembly. I can do that I assembled my 2 shelf bookcase. After finally getting both shelves in the house, they are a bit longer than I am tall, I started working about 3:30. I got the first shelf done, fixed and ate dinner, then started on the second. I got 2 shelves put together, grouped my other pieces, pulled out the long sides and piece 8N was broken! Not a problem, well, yes it was but now that the boxes and shelf parts were all over the house there was no option but to finish the project, somehow. Half an hour of phone calls later another shelf was found and they would replace just the part I need, I didn't have to start all over! Back to Target (the newest one "in town" has a Starbucks in the store!). It was now 8:45, very close to my bedtime, I put my screwdriver in my pocket and went to work.

I finished the shelves, had them in place and ready to fill at 10:00 only 6 1/2 hours after I started. What I learned in the process, other than how to use a drill, was that deciding I could do this was the most powerful tool I had. At any point if I would have said "I can't do this" I would have been right and I the shelf parts would be scattered all over the house. Instead the kids have nice bookcases and they are starting the school year organized. That after all was the mission - mission complete!