Tetris Bookcase: DO WANT

The new apartment is going to be very cozy. Over the last 4 months I have been trying to downsize the amount of miscellaneous shit I have lying around which is particularly difficult for me being the past dwelling, sentimental slob that I am. In preparation and in my attempts to forge a new path for myself I have successfully sold, thrown away or otherwise downsized about 50% of the stuff that I own.

This bodes well for the move into an apartment 1/4 the size of my current one but still, with limited closet space i am going to have personal debris spewing out of every nook and cranny. As I go through piles of stuff I own I find plenty of stuff that I refuse to throw away like comic books, art supplies, reference books, old video games and the like. I never use this stuff but I can't seem to be rid of it so I have decided to put it all on display that it might get a second wind and see some use again.

When I started looking around for furniture I got it into my head that a Tetris bookcase would be awesome and fitting to house all of my dorky collectibles. I was quickly discouraged finding cheap plastic versions, Tetris-like but non Tetris specific versions, and kiddie playroom crap. Finally I found exactly what I wanted.

Well made, adult style Tetris shelves with individual pieces for custom stacking! Sadly I was again discouraged to find that this place had the nerve to charge 600 bucks apiece for these things. that means the set would be 6000 grand. What nerdy Tetris fan has 6000 bucks to drop on shelving? Absolutely absurd.

I of course decided this place was not deserving of my money and because of their insulting price tag that I would make direct rip offs of the shelves myself and this is where the quest really began. For 500 bucks or so I am making a full set of these myself.

Here is the first update on progress...

I drew up a few chicken scratch plans that I had Nick interpret and we begin figuring out plans for wood types, proper measurements etc. Baltic Birch was our wood of choice and over a couple of weekends we got the amounts we needed to make 2 of every Tetris piece.

On Sunday we headed down to the shop and started getting our preliminary cutting done. By we of course I mean Nick. He is the only one allowed to use the saw, in fact I don't think I am allowed to even be on the premises. (Not that I would use the saw even if I could. Destructive power tools like this are horrifying to me.)

This picture of Nick smiling was added to keep up the illusion that Nick enjoys spending his Sundays at school working on unpaid projects for me.

After a couple hours of carefully double and triple checking to make sure we didn't screw up, we ended up with this nice beautiful stack of perfectly cut wood. This is as far as we have gotten so far but I am already excited that they are beginning to take shape. More updates to come...