Now to place the shelves in their position-and all will be well unless you made the fatally easy mistake of figuring the shelves and cutting them to the width of the recess, forgetting to subtract the thickness of the two side boards. In that case, the whole job would be just that much too wide, and would not go in. You may think this would be a pretty dumb oversight (and so it would) but such mistakes are appallingly easy to make if you do not keep constantly thinking of what you are doing, and unless you frequently try various boards in position as you proceed. This tends to reveal many little things that you wouldn't, without more or less experience, happen to think of.

The top shelf, of course, is nailed down, from its top side, into the ends of the side pieces, and only one other thing remains to be considered. shelves, which present a brave sight when you first view your completed handiwork, are certain to sag and look simply terrible when they are loaded with books-if the shelves are much more than 4' o" in length. For this reason, in all bookshelves running over this length you need to cut uprights, from the same lumber as the shelf boards, and run them up the center of the shelves.

This seems simple, but like anything else, needs a little technique. In the first place, mark off the heights from the heights between the actual shelves, as built, and take the mark-off from the height of the shelf as it is at one of the side pieces. Then it is important (unless you just don't care what this thing looks like) to set the supports exactly at right angles to the face of the shelves. In order to achieve this, you use your carpenter's square again, and rule two guide lines on each shelf, sighting the upright as you put it in-and let us hope that it has been cut so accurately to height that it needs a little force to put it in position. Now it's easy enough to see how all the nails in positions "a"-"a"-"a" are to be driven in, but how about nailing up from the bottom? You can't very well get in under the nailed-up base, or bottom shelf, neither can you drive nails up into the support "b," when the support "c" has previously been nailed into place directly below it. (See illustration on page 27.)

You have to resort to what carpenter's call "toenailing," which simply means driving a small brad, or finishing nail obliquely, as shown in the sketch called "toenailing." The nail is countersunk, or driven into the wood about 1/16" with your nail-set, and the hole filled with plastic wood and sandpapered off smooth. That's about the only way to do it. I have known people who don't nail in the auxiliary supports in long bookshelves at all. The secret is that the weight of the books holds them in place. It will, but the supports have a tendency to get worked out of their true vertical alignment- and this doesn't look very shipshape.

Well, here is a simple set of shelves, made from a simple scale drawing, from which the quantity of the lumber could be figured in advance, and all that needs to be done to it now is to paint it to match the woodwork. A whole later chapter has been reserved for paints and other finishes, so we don't have to do anything about that now.

Have we overlooked anything? Perhaps a word about the technique of sawing. Always saw steadily and evenly. Avoid bursts of speed or nervous hurry. Develop a tempo. If sawdust obscures the line you are sawing, blow the sawdust off and make sure that you are right on the line. Carpenters use two saw-horses on which to rest the boards, but these are unlikely to be found as part of the standard equipment of the average apartment. The best substitute is two small boxes of equal height. You need two because the far end of a long board must be supported while you are cutting the other end, and the supports need to be exactly the same height since the board must have a firm bearing while you are sawing it. You can find this out yourself as soon as you try sawing accurately on a line marked on a board that keeps springing and rocking about. Also, the cut should always be at a true right angle with the face of the board.

In the interest of decently accurate sawing technique, the board must be in a level position, and with a firm support or bearing. If two boxes aren't handy, use two chairs, preferably from the kitchen. But nowadays, in the apartment capsule-kitchen, there aren't any kitchen chairs, so you use two dining-room chairs. The seats should be protected with wrapping paper or several thicknesses of newspaper, preferably tied in place-then you have only to remember that no good will come of sawing too close to the edge of the chair. Carried away by the fun of building things you may easily saw an edge off the chair along with the cut you are making on your board-and comments from the rest of the household are unlikely to be gratifying.