Just SherringThe BAD & the Good with Billy Bookcase Part I
I fell in love with Billy on Instagram.
Bookstagrammer after bookstagrammer flaunted their extensive libraries and namedropped Billy as the ever-impressive bookcase that housed their precious books.
Nearly six months after closing on and moving into my Brooklyn co-op, hundreds of books remained packed in over a dozen boxes. Why? Because my library was not yet set up, even though my very own Billy had been delivered weeks after moving in.
Stalking Billy online, I learned my options were white, oak, black oak, and brown walnut. Different sizes and variations, including some with glass doors. Pretty, but I didn’t want to be cleaning glass.
One variation came in blue, but not the one with a corner unit and height extension—the one I wanted. I decided to purchase the white: three large bookcases with one stationary shelf, four adjustable shelves, the aforementioned height extender, and a slim bookcase designed to fit a corner. I’d paint it blue myself.
Despite knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that my brother Cliff is quite handy with a hammer and power tools, instead of being patient and having him build me a custom library in what shoe lovers or fashionistas would make a walk-in closet, I fell prey to Ikea’s Black Friday sale. I conferred with him about Billy fitting. He hesitantly agreed, preferring to measure.
No time, man! I gotta catch this sale!
He assumed he’d assemble it, but Ikea has an option to book Task Rabbit while ordering online. There goes that no patience thing again.
Patience could have saved me hundreds of dollars, pain, and aggravation.
After the Tasker spent two hours assembling Billy, he informed me the bookcases couldn’t fit as planned because a part of the wall that jutted out. I had to forfeit the corner bookcase, the pièce de résistance that made me love it in the first place. I called Ikea. For a small fee, they’d pick it up and, after inspection, grant a refund. Before leaving, the Tasker had me Zelle him an additional $50+ because he’d worked longer than the time allotted.
I went to my neighborhood paint store to buy supplies for my library makeover. Brushes, rollers, a bin, one gallon each of Midnight Navy in matte and gloss finishes—for the wall and bookcases, respectively, and a lighter blue called Lapis for the backsplash. I had a roller extender, and Cliff said he’d buy me a spray gun.
I was leaving the store when I mentioned that I was ready to paint my Ikea bookcases.
“Ikea?” said Karl, the store attendant. “You can’t just paint Ikea bookcases. You have to sand and prime, or else the paint will crack and chip off.”
“I’m not doing all that,” I replied, defiantly.
“Look, I can’t in good conscience let you do that. You’d just be wasting your money.”
He asked me to pull up Billy to read the configurations and finish. He then pulled up YouTube videos to support his claim that paint would not adhere to the glossy finish.
“You broke my heart, Fredo!” He chuckled at my Godfather II reference.
Karl and I had built a rapport over the weeks. I’d been in and out of the store selecting color swatches for my kitchen, library, bedroom, and living room. He knew my brother had gifted me black paint for the bathroom.
“Work on one room at a time,” he advised, and I ignored.
I was in the process of coloring my grout black with grout markers, thanks to YouTube University. Yet, there I was buying paint for the library. I was determined to have it painted before the New Year, mere weeks away.
I deflated when “Fredo” showed me all the work to transform Billy. He wasn’t trying to upsell me. The store didn’t carry the tools I needed for the extra steps. I dropped off the paint at home, then hopped a bus to Home Depot in Bed-Stuy.
New Year came and went. The gallons of paint, painter’s tape, rollers, brushes, sander, and sandpaper sat by the door until Cliff could come from Boston. This man arrived on an April Wednesday evening prepared!
That night, we removed the bookcases and other stuff from the library. It had morphed into storage for random things. Once the room was empty, he unfurled green and blue painter’s tape to protect the hardwood (laminate) floors. He even laid out some of his tools as if it were the night before the first day of school. The paper would be laid the next day.
Lastly, he plugged in a huge portable power pack to charge overnight.
The next morning, after carrying the bookcases, power tools, and a worker’s bench I had no idea he had, into the building’s backyard, he started on the manual labor. I returned to my apartment for remote office work. Minutes later, he was at my door. The power pack was not working despite there being a reading.
A huge monkey wrench in plans. EVERYTHING was corded power tools. No outlets outside. We hopped online to search Lowe’s and Home Depot. Even if I could afford the pricey power pack, none were in stock nearby. My only option was to buy another sander, this time cordless. I owned battery packs for my DeWalt drills, so I purchased a DeWalt sander online for in-store pickup. He went solo.
We forgot sandpaper. More minutes as he completed the purchase.
One battery charged while he was out. The trip to and from and the pickup took about two hours. He entered my apartment to swap batteries a few times, so I didn’t look up. Lo and behold, a man approached him, asked who he was, etc. I figured it was the building superintendent. He stood a few feet away as I knocked on the Super’s door, located on the same floor but other side of the building as my apartment.
The Super informed me that other building shareholders had complained about the noise of the sander, which had been grinding for hours. Even if they hadn’t complained, there’s a NYC noise ordinance that loud construction must end at 4 pm.
When there’s still plenty of daylight left? We’d already lost a couple of hours because of the battery situation.
It was close to 4. I told my brother to go squeeze out some more work before quitting time. I fear(ed) an HOA fine.
The Super suggested I store the three bookcases in the nearby boiler room rather than lug them all the way back to my apartment.
“Please do not lose this key and return to me first thing in the morning,” he said in his heavy European accent.
Cliff was tired, and covered in the dust from sanding all afternoon, but he started painting the room. For whatever reason, the tape wouldn’t stick to the walls even after they’d been wiped down for dust. Fumes enveloped the apartment. The paint went on unevenly. Apparently, the previous owner had painted over a bad wallpaper job. It wasn’t noticeable because the room didn’t have light, and it was all-white. The line between the Lapis of the ceiling and Midnight Navy of the walls isn’t as crisp as I would’ve hoped, but c’est la vie.
Hours later, I served him dinner, just as I had served him breakfast and lunch. After he showered, we attempted to watch TV, but he was snoring within minutes.
The next morning, post-breakfast, I helped him pull out the bookcases from the boiler room. I still had to work on my project so I left him. Once submitted, I joined him to finish sanding and start priming. The 50-pack of sandpaper ran low. I told him to focus on removing the gloss and not so much the paint so that the primer could stick.
“But then it won’t be an even coat,” he protested.
“Sir, we need to focus. We are running out of time.”
I could tell it hurt him to his core. He wanted the job done right, no shortcuts. He compared it to me not allowing him to turn in half-ass papers that I proofread when we were young.
I donned gloves to manually sand the corners that the round power sander could not. I got a handcramp in 2.5 seconds. Ok, maybe not that soon, but I am not cut out for this line of work. This cramp surpassed that from a long journaling session.
I thought priming the shelves and bookcases would ease the pain. Tuh! I messed up by painting closed some of shelf pin holes. An error I’d pay for later.
“Paint in the middle then when it starts to lighten up move out to the edges,” he instructed.
“Ohhhhhhh, so much better,” I said when I spotted the difference and stopped clogging the holes.
Cramps aside, I enjoyed spending time with and working beside my brother. There was laughter galore. I saw his butt crack; he saw mine. He let me use the power sander. I was amazed at the power of a machine I gripped in the palm of my hand. I should note that he lowered the level so I wouldn’t accidentally drop and damage/break it.
It was a quick-drying primer, so we carried the bookcases in minutes after priming. Actually, I slowed him down when attempting to help him. He tilted those badboys sideways, propped them on his hip and carried them himself. I held the doors open and told him how to angle the top or bottom so they’d fit through the doorway.
“My name is Cliff. I have muscles.” Even the security guard laughed at my taunting.
Things were going too smoothly.
It was bad enough the bookcases couldn’t be spray-painted outside because the power pack wasn’t working. Next, we discovered only one of the three spray painters worked. One. The other two hadn’t been properly cleaned after being used by other people. While he used the one, I was tasked with cleaning and trying to unclog the others using alcohol, to no avail. I got loopy even with the bathroom window open.
During one of his brief, much-deserved breaks, I sprayed the shelves. I also hand-painted the extender that had broken off when we carried it inside. The hole was damaged. That’s what happens when you’re working with compressed wood.
Much like using the power sander, I loved using the spray gun. The paint went on smoothly and evenly. More hand and wrist pain.
I turned on a fan for ventilation, but we absolutely should’ve worn masks. I saw blue when I blew my nose. The Q-tip had traces of blue residue when I cleaned my ear. Two days later, my chest felt heavy, soreness in my hands continued.
My brother left Saturday afternoon. There was still work to be done, but nothing I couldn’t handle. He needed to return to Boston to work a double shift the next day. Knowing that he likes extra cold water, I put water in the freezer for his drive. I also packed snacks while he loaded his car.
Over the two and half days, tempers flared, but nothing crazy. He misunderstood my disappointment about things going wrong as being directed at him.
“I’m allowed to be disappointed about thing after thing going wrong. I’m not mad at you,” I reassured him.
He turned around and mimicked me when I tried to calm him down and remind him that he needed to be ok with not completing everything on the To-Do List, including wallpapering my bathroom and replacing my kitchen faucet.
He loves doing handiwork. He hated to leave the work undone. “I’m allowed to be disappointed.”
I laughed in his face.
I was disappointed and felt guilty that time didn’t permit me to treat him to a restaurant brunch or dinner. I did prepare three meals a day. I even took requests and set the table.
I’m grateful my brother spent his off days to help me realize the dream of setting up my own personal library. It’s been a shared dream/goal for a few decades. I always planned to be a homeowner. He always planned to do the renovations.
The library isn’t done by far, but it’s a good start. I can’t believe a tiny room and three bookcases almost took us out. Even during the homebuying process, I learned that I’d have to pivot from original plans. Billy sure did make me pivot, all with positive outcomes.
Subscribe or come back soon to read about the good in The Bad & the GOOD with Billy Bookcase Part II.
#Blue #Bookcases #Books #Bookshelves #coOp #fiction #Goodreads #HomeDepot #Homeowner #Homeownership #Ikea #library #life #LoweS #NYC #Paint #Painting #reading #Renovations #Siblings #writing
Gail Waldby ❌👑
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