My Old Cinder Block Bookcase

Published by Toronto Mike on April 11, 2009 @ 09:11 in Memories

HomeI live in Toronto. Not the GTA, but Toronto proper. My area code is 416. I love my little 3-bedroom house and I love my neighbourhood.

I work with lots of people who live outside the city, in Mississauga, Brampton, Milton, Oakville, Georgetown or Burlington. When it comes to square footage, I can't compete. These folks are tossing out crazy figures, like 3000 square feet and the like, and my awesome Toronto home simply doesn't measure up. I suppose it's a choice every parent has to make: suburban home with lots of space or awesome Toronto neighbourhood home with little space. We happily chose the latter.

Without the space, we have to be extra creative when it comes to furniture, storage and general organization. Less is more, and this past week we decided our living room / dining room (it's really the same room in my home) bookshelf from Ikea had to go. If you want a brown Ikea BILLY bookcase system, let me know.

Moving the BILLY bookcase out of the house reminded me of our first bookcase. My wife and I moved into our first apartment in 1996, a bachelor apartment at Yonge and Charles Street. We didn't have a pot to piss in, so I built our first bookcase using cinder blocks and slabs of wood I managed to collect in my travels.

I always loved my cinder block bookcase, and my wife allowed it to remain our primary bookcase until we bought our first home five years later. That's when we bought the $99 BILLY bookcase from Ikea.

Here's a blurry picture of my old cinder block bookcase. I miss it.

bookshelf
Permalink Entry Permalink Comments 7 comments

7 Responses to "My Old Cinder Block Bookcase"

Buffalo Boy Mike
April 11, 2009 / 10:35

Mike, I have a set up just like that but its in our basement. It really is a great system!
Cheap and holds a hell of a lot of stuff.

The_Voice
April 11, 2009 / 12:29

Hey Mike, email me a link to a photo of the BILLY book case. Maybe I'll be able to take it off your hands (depending on the dimensions).

Toronto Mike
April 11, 2009 / 15:35

Voice, my mom just read this entry and asked for the bookcase.

Sorry, dude!

Horonymous
April 11, 2009 / 16:46

We have a 45 year old 3 bedroom house that is far from 3000 square feet. Mississauga is also now part of the city with murders,poverty & crime to prove it.

My house is closer to downtown than parts of T.O.

I have a 416 cell phone does that help?

Roshan
April 12, 2009 / 01:58

Nice. Reminds me of my mom's old kitchen cupboard that I got a couple of carpenters to convert into my book shelf cum music cassette shelf. I just had them add a few extra planks of wood (to make the space between them slightly bigger than the size of cassette tapes). I have a pic of it somewhere.

Argie
April 13, 2009 / 14:54

The only part of the GTA worth living in is Aurora - coincidently that's where I live. Unlike the rest of the GTA, it has very few new home developments, all store and street signs are in English ONLY and an incredibly low crime rate.

Along with that, it still has the pretension of the big city: a few Starbucks, tonnes of places that offer yoga classes and a few independent book stores.

This city has it all.

Wayner
April 13, 2009 / 15:12

would love to move back into toronto proper...we gave up a small apt @Yonge & maitland for the wilds of durham...can't afford toronto now...

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