I moved this past March from Mountain View, CA to El Cerrito (just north of Berkeley). In the process, I had to consolidate my bedroom and my LEGO studio into one room. That’s fine, as the new room is plenty big enough, but there was a small disaster during the move that prevented me from finishing setting up the room until just now.
You see, I keep my LEGO in these “PAX” wardrobe cabinets from IKEA. I have two of the 39 1/4″ x 23 1/2″ x 93 1/8″ wardrobes, with shelves in them that get filled up with plastic bins full of sorted LEGO parts. But because the wardrobes are so tall, the movers couldn’t fit them around the corner into my room, and so I had to disassemble them in the kitchen to be rebuilt in my room. Unfortunately, as I was taking the first one apart, I made the mistake of standing on the floor of the cabinet, which broke under my weight. I did get the other one taken apart and put back together without incident, having learned that lesson… and so, in my bedroom for the past four months, I’ve had one PAX cabinet full of LEGO, with stacks and stacks of plastic bins of parts in front of it, and the remains of the other cabinet leaning against the wall.
I finally got around to fixing the problem this week. Here’s what I did. I bought a new regular shelf from IKEA’s “as-is” department (actually 2 of them, since that’s the only way they sell them) and converted it to be a new floor. I cut pieces off the old floor shelf and used them to make brackets that the new one could sit on, and screwed/glued it all together. (Sadly, I couldn’t use the clever screws that IKEA furniture is normally held together with as that would have required precision drilling to make them fit into the new shelf/floor.) Thanks to my friend Zonker Harris for suggesting this idea, by the way. So yesterday after a few hours of mucking about with power tools and screws and glue, I managed to get the busted PAX put together, if not good as new, then at least good enough, and put all my LEGO bins away finally.
Now, it’s theoretically possible for me to start building again. I don’t know if I’ll get around to it, as I have so much work to do for Bricks by the Bay, but I’m sure I will eventually.
And speaking of Bricks by the Bay, public day tickets are now available (but you can still register for the whole convention). Hope to see you in a couple of weeks at the show!
