Doing it Yourself: transforming Ikea Billy bookcases into built-in storage

Yesterday I tweeted about my latest DIY venture: building some built-in book storage in a tricky area, using Ikea Billy bookcases. I was ridiculously proud of them, and, like a child wanting to show her mother her latest creation, I wanted to show someone what I’d made, so I put up a picture on Twitter. Thousands of you were so kind, retweeting and replying with very lovely comments - so I thought I’d jot down how I did it, and how much it cost, in case anyone else finds it useful.

I know that this newsletter is becoming a bit of a mish-mash of seemingly unrelated issues: feminist commentary on how men and women occupy public space; the history of women’s sport; women’s trail-running; camping hacks; Lao women’s textiles; widowhood and grief; and now DIY. I suppose the nice thing (for the writer - maybe not so much for the subscriber!) about a newsletter is that it’s MINE - there’s no c…