Breaking Bad (Bookcases)

Ms H was struggling at home with poor mobility, and there was hardly enough room for her, let alone for her to get around safely with her walker. In her own words, ‘I know I’ve got far too much stuff!’.

The task at hand for Jenni, Lucy and Sarah was to move some furniture around to make a bit more space, allowing Ms H to be safer at home. The main job was to move a bookcase from the right hand side of the room over to the left. This meant manoeuvring items such as mirrors, metal cabinets, CD racks, a London phone box and porcelain dog, and then clearing the shelves of books. Once there was the space, the three of us carefully moved the bookcase over. What we hadn’t planned for was that the wall the bookcase was up against was unintentionally part of its framework! Changing its position had made us realise it was structurally unstable. Despite a bit of on the spot DIY trying to readjust nails and tighten up the shelves, there was no way it was going to take all that stuff again. A falling bookshelf onto an elderly lady wouldn’t be very good publicity for GoodGym!

Ms H agreed with us, and there was only one thing we could do... The furniture in question was taken outside where Sarah and Jenni had fun ‘dismantling’ and all that was left of the bookcase was now a neat pile of flat pack panels on the driveway.

Obviously there was now a bit more space, but also a huge pile of hardbacks, paperbacks and everything in between. The job now was to stack all the books back into neat piles up against the wall, where they would stay safely, but not take up all the room we needed to clear. Tomes in a tower, we then put the rest of the items we had moved back, and then the table and chairs, which actually really opened up the room. There was amazingly a lot more space and Ms H was really pleased with our efforts. Her next mission is to get online to IKEA and order a new bookshelf, and who knows, our next mission might be going back to help her with her new flat pack!