The R-T-A From Hell, Finale

For an account of the trials and tribulations putting this Carson horizontal bookshelf from Target together, see post below.

Doesn't look so bad, does it:

The photo above shows where I "patched" the blown-out veneer finish with the Dowels-That-Would-Not-Fit.  The piece comes with little sticky circular plastic patches that are supposed to be used to go over the holes where the cam lock heads are, but I used all of mine, instead, to try and cover up the damage the dowels caused.  Those sticky patches, plus touch-up marker more or less has camoflauged the damaged areas.  Because of the angle of viewing from the table and when walking by, those areas aren't very noticeable, thankfully. 

So there she is, in place of the beautiful Queen Anne console table, which was removed to my bedroom.  I'm going to make a reading corner in my room utilizing that table.  That's next up, maybe later this evening.

As for this bookshelf/console, the plan right now is to buy some baskets to use for storage that will fit the shelves, but now I'm thinking that I will use this piece, instead, as an eventually flat screen t.v. console in the family room once I get rid of my 1986 entertainment center.  It will then hold VHS tapes and DVDs.  The baskets are probably still a good idea...

My next trip to Menard's will have wood glue (strong wood glue) on my to-buy list. 
The top, which right now is just resting on the unit with no screws or dowels holding it on, will be glued to the body, and the facings (two in the center, and one on either side) will also be disassembled and from their current cam bolts/locks and glued on -- no more masking tape holding them at 90 degrees to the front! 

This bookshelf sits about equal height or slightly taller than my dining table, and now I think I need to redo the bottom row of my gallery wall along with the row(s) above it, to achieve a new balance and a little more space between the bottom of the pictures on the bottom row and the top of the bookshelf.  That will wait until winter! 

The R-T-A from HELL!

Hola darlings!  This is a LONG post with lots of photos.

I passed my 62nd birthday and while I didn't celebrate many of my friends did and dragged me along :)  What can I say?  I'v never exactly been a party-pooper and if a friend wants to take me out for a drink or take me out to dinner at a new place just opened up to see what it's like, it's a little difficult to say No, Thank You, without sounding like a curmudgeon.  Actually, I am rather a curmudgeon -- it's one of those privileges that accrues with "age."  Loving it! 

I haven't been sitting on my hands, despite visible lack of progress on my main projects (stairs and family room).  I rearranged the bedroom, and now I'm going to be doing some adjustments - more about that later. I've also been working my butt off outside in the gardens during the nice stretch of weather we had recently -- I didn't feel like I was melting after 5 minutes outdoors, it was so refreshing! 

So, did I mention a post or two ago that I had been looking around for a new console table for my dinette area?  Maybe not, maybe I just dreamed it. But I was, and I finally settled on one at Target:

This is the Carson horizontal bookcase and I thought it would be just right for the space I wanted to put it in.  The height was what I wanted, the length was good for the wall in question, and the width was less than the Queen Anne sofa table (the beautiful table I purchased from my sister Yvonne) anchoring the space.  More room to walk, therefore, between the dining table and the console table. 

Now Jan, you are asking, why did you want to replace the beautiful Queen Anne style sofa table with a console?

It all came down to a matter of proportions.  I LOVE that Queen Anne table, I coveted it from my sister for YEARS, and finally had a chance to buy it when she and her hubby sold their place here and moved Up North (Prentice, WI -- waaaaaaaayyyyyy up north).  I set it up in the dinette area and it looked so pretty there on my gallery wall, even though it gave me no storage.  Loved the color, love the shape.  But the size -- ah, yes, the size.

In comparison to my dining table and chairs, it was dwarfed.  It just didn't look right.  I tried to overlook the obvious mismatch in styles and sizes, but in the end I decided I needed something that was closer in height and visual "weight" to my large scaled table and chairs, not the delicate and shapely lines of the Queen Anne table.  Sigh.

Here are some photos of the Queen Anne table in place in the dinette in relation to the table -- these will give you an idea of the size/proportion issues I mentioned:

So, I went ahead and ordered the Carson horizontal bookcase from Target.  It arrived quickly.  It was HEAVY!  I struggled to drag it in from the front porch to the front room over the threshold, oh my.  But after much tugging, heaving, and heavy breathing, I won.

I tore into the box...

Well packed, no damage to any of the pieces during shipping.  Hooray!

White styrofoam CRAP all over the place!

It took a long time to carry the pieces from the front room to the family room, where I assembled it.  Some of the pieces were incredibly heavy.  I got everything out of the packaging and relocated without damage.  But the finish was very fragile, as I learned...

I couldn't stand all the styrofoam bits and cleaned up with my Dirt Devil.  Mine is probably 15 years old now, and still works great!  Love that little gal.  She's got better suction through her hose attachment than my expensive vacuum cleaner (which I am soon going to junk -- lesson learned -- spending a lot of money on a vacuum doesn't necessarily mean it is any better than the $59.99 specials). 

 

I have lots of experiencing putting R-T-A together, including the desk in the family room, and at least a dozen bookcases over the years, some more complicated than others.  This looked simple enough.  It started with construction of the inner core shelving unit to the outer shell.  Made sense.

Except - the dowels didn't fit.  The cams didn't didn't lock properly.  The holes did not line up properly.  The instructions were short on words and long on drawings that were hard to decipher even with my magnifying Walgreens readers on!  In short, darlings, it was a nightmare!  EEK EEK EEK!

Over TWO weekends I struggled to put this sucker together, and I was SO pissed, I even thought about rejoining Facebook just so I could go to Target's Facebook page and blast them for this piece of crap!

Finally, in one big push the day before our investment club meeting (meets at my house) on August 18th, I worked my butt off until I got it together.  Sort of.

It is taped in some places...

 

This is part of the inner shelving unit.  There is a front facing that is supposed to be attached to each of two shelves with two dowels and two cam bolts.  Well, you can see the gap!  I tried everything, including resorting to pounding with a mallet to try and get those damn dowels to work -- no go.  Eventually I took the dowels out, which left a wobbly front facing that I taped to the bottom of the shelf with masking tape to stop it from jiggling!  Problem solved.  Just don't look too close (underneath the shelves...) 

Another issue was the fit.  I know how to use cam lock technology, geez!  You can see in the photo above that this shelf and the side it goes into was not engineered correctly and just did not fit snugly together, no matter how I finagled the cam bolt!  Finally, I just gave up, since this section is at the rear of the unit, and thankfully doesn't show as much.  You can also see the finish flaking off in places where the shelf fit into the side. Arggghhh!

 

The photo above is one of the inner core pieces across which two permanent shelves were to be affixed.  The instructions said to "carefully tap" dowels into the four spots that you can obviously see in this photo I totally blew out by tapping in just a little bit too hard!  Veneered finish on this MDF piece was totally blown to shreds -- on both sides of this piece and the companion piece supporting the other side of the shelves.  Yeah.  I was thrilled, as you can imagine...  Dowels were removed and the piece works fine without them. 

Yep, there is some of the finish veneer now laying on my family room rug. I saved the pieces and tried to glue them back onto the piece after it was all put together.  OHMYGODDESS, what a fiasco.  I glued my fingers together and the veneer pieces turned to mush.

Never say die!  I pushed onward, despite the hideous damage to the inner shelf supports.  Bottom struts and side (end) panels went on next.

Not the best photos, sorry.  You get the general idea, though.

Eventually, it was all together, except for putting the top piece and trim on.  It took me probably three hours trying this, that and the other thing to get the top on.  No go.  Dowels did not fit into holes, nothing lined up properly.  I eventually removed all of the dowels and left four cam bolts.  Still could not get the top lined up so it was flush with the top cam bolts.  I removed those last cam bolts too.  I gave up.  I didn't have any wood glue in the house so I just dry-fitted the top on to the body of the bookshelf and put it into place on the gallery wall.  That top piece is heavy.  It isn't going anywhere.