A Christmas Present [Arriving In February]

By the time you read this post, the final 2010 family Christmas present should have been delivered! This is from Liz to Jon – but required some input from Bob. So we are spending two days of Half Term in London, visiting the girls, and playing Santa.

Jon wanted a DJ Deckstand, similar to these…

But they are rather expensive – although they appear relatively simple in construction. Liz investigated on the internet and came up with an IKEA Hacker project.

Bob took an Expedit Bookcase, and a Vika Amon tabletop and some wood [from that £2.50 trolley load we got in IKEA last month!]

And he spent his spare moments in the garage working

Here you see the bookcase assembled, lying on its side. Beside it is the ‘dogbox’ [this is apparently the correct title for the box that hides the cables and connectors]

 

Plus the essential mugs of tea!

Here is Bob doing more work on the dogbox

You can also see at the bottom of the picture that the side [now top] of the bookcase has been covered in black foam rubber.

This is a roll-up camping mat which had been retired to the loft after I had said “No more camping holidays!”

 

 

The dogbox was painted black. For ease of assembly, Bob got some large hinges from B&Q which have a removable pin, and some very long coach bolts.

Here are the finished pieces. All that drilling/sawing and sanding has left everything in the garage covered with a thin film of dust!

The table top has two small holes drilled in it. The other spots are raindrops – I had to stand outside the garage to take this photo!

The tabletop goes onto the bookcase and at each end, the pin slides in to join the two parts of the hinges. That layer of foam rubber helps ‘damp’ any rattling.

Two large coach bolts hold the dogbox onto the top [look at the fingerprints in the dust!]

And the top just sits snugly in place

Dusting…

Done and [almost] dusted!

It took 5 minutes to assemble, and I hope to post pictures later of the unit in situ at the flat, with Jon’s decks in place. Bob is justly pleased with his efforts and I know Jon will get lots of use out of this new bit of kit. Liz and I are obviously happy about the thriftiness of the whole thing, as compared to the overpriced ready-made stuff.

Happy Christmas, Jon!