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Things have been slow in the shop lately, the insulation isn't in yet and it has been hot. I have mentioned in other places that I have misplaced all the photos I had of my old shops and projects, yet here I sit at the computer staring at my very first project ever and I have never taken a picture of it nor written about it.
In the summer of 1983, as I was preparing to go off to University, we were in IKEA looking at furniture. I was moving away from home for the first time and I needed some things. I could not hope to afford most of the furniture on my budget, especially since I had a really crappy paying summer job that year with the City of Fort Saskatchewan, yet I fell in love with this fire truck red living room set.
Well, home we went with only a few cheap cooking utensils, and several times I mentioned how much I admired that set. Well, one day Dad said, "I don't know why you would want to pay all that money for it, we could probably make it for next to nothing." What? Make it? It wasn't long before we were back in IKEA with paper and pencil and trust tape measure. When the salesman asked what we were doing Dad simply replied that we wanted to make sure it fit the room before we bought it.
To make a long story short, most of the set has been given away, or left behind in our cross-continent move, but I still have my once firetruck red bookshelf, but it ins't red anymore. It has survived several color changes and it is now grey. I suppose I still have it because it's proportions are useful. But it is still a simple plywood box ripped on Dad's old radial arm saw with routered dadoes and birch strips to hide the plywood edges. It is solid as a rock and I anticipate it to be around for many more years.
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