oyceter | Nifty things

1. Life has been busy lately (insanely so, sometimes, given the moving and whatnot), but good.

2. Completely randomly, it makes me happy that my name means "joy." ^_^ (I re-realized this today).

3. And look! I have a happy, alive, bouncy Goku icon, courtesy of

rilina!

4. I've started moving things to the condo! Granted, just a little at a time, but enough to assuage the panicky feel of moving and to make me really look forward to it! Large kitchen! Gas range! Enough room so that I can use one room purely for a study (aka BOOKSHELVES OMG YAY)! A large patio with a faucet outside so maybe I can grow tomatoes and herbs! Closet space!

5. Ok, this has to do with the move (I feel like it should be capitalized or something), but it is of enough import that it gets its own number. BOOKSHELVES OMG YAY! I've decided to sell most of mine because they're random and fit the space now, but since I have an entire room, I can get the same bookshelves to maximize wall space! I'm trying to decide if I should buy them or build them, given that all bookshelves I look at are too deep, and it annoys me. I do need some that are deep, esp. for my non-fiction, but I really, really, really want many shelves built specifically for mass markets and manga. I remember seeing schematics for one somewhere, but I lost the link.

6. I saw a rainbow last week! It felt like a minor miracle because it was so perfect, an entire arc, vivid against the gray sky, with a faint inverted rainbow right above itl. I actually saw someone pull over to the side of the road just to take a picture of it. I hate the rain we've been having, but that made it all so worth it.

7. More complaints about the rain, but then... the past few days, when it's been stopping, the clouds retreat just a bit and turn into giant fluffy unreal Platonic clouds. And now that the sun is setting earlier, I tend to go home just as it's setting and lighting everything gold and pink and orange. It looks like Thomas Kinkade, but less sappy ;).

8. I learned a form in wushu yesterday! I guess they're not kata, since wushu is in Chinese (thank god... maybe I'll not completely forget it). But it's all cool and martial art-y! We also learned different stances, including the common horse stance and the monkey stance, which totally amused me and made me giggle on the inside because I'm 12. But! The whole time, I was thinking, looky looky I'm like Goku! /dork

9. Intl. Saiyuki week continues to rock, with people posting wonderful things.

10. I get to play with clay tomorrow! And help paint on Sat (the novelty has not yet worn off), and have lots and lots of seafood that night!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The depth of bookshelves is annoying, but I wonder if partly that is to make sure their base is big enough for them to be stable?

Currently I have lots of unused space (although in the past month I have filled one shelf (the entire bookshelf has 7 shelves) with manga), but at my parents, when I had only two bookshelves available, I resorted to double-shelving. If I had a way of raising the books in back so that they would be visible over the books in front, I think that could work reasonably well.

Aside: How do you personally shelve manga? Alphabetical by author, or by series title?

*I* shelve manga by series title, because I can't be bothered to remember the mangaka of them all. I remember the mangaka names of my more favorite series (Kazuya Minekura, Hiroaki Samura), or if they're got a funky-sounding name (Kubo Tite), but other than that they all blend into a sort of general Japanese mass of names.

I shelve manga by series title--or at least, I would if I hadn't run out of proper shelf space and resorted to stacking them on the top of one bookcase. Fortunately, I have high ceilings, so the stack in question can go up and up and up!

Have you considered rotating the books within the shelves so that they are on their sides? That way, you can pile them up to the top of the shelf and use space more effectively. It is a bit of a pain to pull out books, and even more of a pain to put them back in, but it sure does gain extra use out of the space.

Oh, I did that years ago!

I just need to move to a bigger apartment really.

Probably, but now I've decided I shall bolt things to the wall! Also, if I am ever superbly rich, I am just going to have bookshelves built into the wall. Not like I'm not going to use them...

I'm currently doubled up on all my shelves where possible, with piles of books next to those, on my bed, in the bathroom, and etc. I really need new shelves -_-;;.

I actually don't have a system for manga yet, because a) I don't have that much and b) I started buying after all my shelf space ran out, so right now it's a little random. When I move, I plan on shelving by author, just because it would irritate me beyond belief to have all the Yazawa Ai stuff in different places. Otherwise, I tend to think of manga in term of title, probably because of how American bookstores shelve them.

In Boston, at least, unfinished furniture stores often have shelves whose dimensions are better suited for books. Might be worth investigating if you don't actually want to build them yourselves.

Thanks! I googled and found somewhere nearby with 8" deep shelves, which seems better! Also, I can finish it myself or something. It'll be an adventure.

Ok, #4 makes me seriously jealous of your condo. ^^

Having bookcases in the right depth sounds awesome, but it also makes me wonder about stability . . . normally I don't think of things like that, but recently I was grumbling to my mom (a librarian) about our bookcases being all flimsy particle board and how some of the shelves are bowing a bit, and she pointed out that the poor construction extends to the shelves being longer than the recommended length without having additional support. So apparently there're some standards that *should* be adhered to . . ?

Gas range!! That almost makes me as excited as bookshelf space!

I think I'm going to end up bolting mine to the wall. Also, if I ever get rich enough, I'm going to have a room with bookshelves built into the wall! Ahhhhhh..... dreams.

I grew up with a gas range, and even though I've been using electric stoves for ten years now I *still* always fear burning myself on them (I like visible flames telling me something's hot *laughs*).

Having snagged those bookcase schematics, I told Chris about them, and maybe we'll make some this summer. And ohhh, bookshelves in the wall is the best idea ever. *_* (Except sometimes I think instead of just a room, it'd be neat to have a winding staircase with shelves set into it. Perfect display. ^^)

They do make shallow shelves, but they usually advertise them for videos.

Yeah, I've checked those out. Unfortunately, it's incredibly hard finding ones large enough... most tend to be fairly short and waste vertical space =(.

Shelves meant for videos are great for paperbacks. We bought lots a couple years ago at an unfinished-furniture store (and paid them to finish them for us, because we'd gotten realistic after painting the house).

I keep trying to find giant media shelves b/c they're the exact right depth, but they seem to be horribly expensive. Also, no one makes them big enough! I think I need to find more indie furniture stores or something, because Ikea obviously does not cater to me.

Here are the directions for shallow bookcases that I posted for you last time. :) http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.fandom/msg/29ecbc662eb930f?output=gplain
We had great success with these. They do need to be attached to the wall, but that's really easy to do with an L-bracket as long as you know where the studs are. We made them with 6-inch-wide boards instead of 8-inch, which is perfect for MMPBs and manga, and even a lot of our TPBs fit. Our really big modification was that only one of the middle shelves is screwed onto the uprights; the rest are sitting on pegs. So easy to make! We haven't had a noticeable earthquake since putting them up, but they seem pretty stable when the big trucks go by.

*snags* ^^

Oh thank you!!!

I need to check out Home Depot just to see how easy they are to make.

Closet space!

You know I'm going to miss you dreadfully, but hee, I am also terribly excited about having more closet space! ;)

Nifty things

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