Making the Little Library

WELCOME to the blog site for our Little Library. It's basically a book exchange - everyone is welcome to take a book, but we ask that - if they can - they leave one in return. We got the idea from littlefreelibrary.org, but we haven't actually affiliated to them (yet) because, well - because you have to pay them, and right now we'd rather just get things up and running!

We bought the cabinet that was to become our Little Library from our friends at Pilgrims Progress - and when we told them what we wanted it for they promptly donated a pile of books as well... many thanks to them for that - donations are very important to the Library, so if you have books you'd like to donate then please do! 

The cabinet is made of beautiful old wood, so one of the main things we had to do was to make it waterproof before handing it over to the tender ministrations of the Liverpool weather! There were various cracks in the wood, and at the joins, so the first job was to fill those.

The cabinet was also on castors, so the next job was to remove them and then raise it up off the ground on some wooden blocks.

 Probably the main single piece of weatherproofing comes from the varnish - we found the one that had the most words like 'marine', 'exterior', 'heavy duty', etc written on the tin and slapped a couple of coats all over - time will tell whether it really does 'do what it says on the tin'...

...but, to be honest, we thought it probably needed a bit of help, given the regular downpours we've been having...

 ...so we found an off-cut of asphalt roofing and fixed that on the top to (hopefully) take the worst of the weather and make sure the books stay nice and dry inside.

 With the outside secured (touch-heavily-varnished-wood), it was time to turn to the inside - and add some shelves. Those shelves are more level than they look, by the way - it's the camera angle, honestly, they're actually pretty level... and the floor is on a slope... and, look, the books don't care so neither should you!

Talking of books - time to add some...

Time also to create a display window in the inside of the door panel, where we can put more details about what we're doing and why...

... the following post tells you exactly what it says.

Almost done now - time to 'fill yer books'! The basic idea is that the top two shelves are books for grown-ups and the bottom shelf is for the kids - although there's no hard and fast rule to that... if you like the look of it, then read it!

And talking of what you like - frankly, we have no idea... so if you'd like something in particular (or even just something different from what we've chosen), then please tell us. 

You can tell us here on the blog; you can pop a note through the door; or you can just knock and tell us directly.

And finally... a lovingly made sign for the front door panel, so you all know exactly what to look out for, and how to tell when you've found it :-)