Help I Accidentally Built A Shelf

Just for the fun of it I thought I'd do a separate post about James' birthday bookshelf. You see, I always love to brag when I think I've been very sneaky.

I asked James what he wanted for his birthday and he said this bookshelf he had on his Amazon wish list. It was almost $200, but we've been talking about getting a bookshelf ever since we moved in because we still had boxes of books that have nowhere to go. But I acted like I wasn't really interested in getting him a bookshelf.

THEN, while he was gone, I scouted out R.C. Willey, Shopko, and Target on my mom's suggestion that I could probably find a similar one for cheaper. And at long last, at Target I found the perfect bookshelf that looked pretty much exactly the same, but for only $100. It also had good reviews about being sturdy.







I had to get the store workers to put it onto a cart for me and take it to the car. Then we had to lean it from the back seat into the passenger seat because the back seats don't fold down into the trunk.







I bought it about a week before James' birthday, so I had to hide it somewhere in the meantime. But James is weirdly good at finding things. You never know when he is going to randomly go through the closet, or look under the bed, or go on a cleaning spree.

So, I hid it under a canopy in the back of our apartment along with a bunch of the landlord's stuff. I wrapped it in a tarp against the elements and even added the extra touches of a mat, engine fluid and a tree stump.












Completely camouflaged.










It stayed there for a week and I am happy to say that I never spilled the beans! It was a total surprise. I had James do a treasure hunt that eventually led outside to the lawnmower, where I had stacked a bunch of his books. (I meant to put 25 books, to go with the whole theme, but there just wasn't time.) He was like, "What the dickens are my books doing out here?" Then he read the clue which told him the books needed a place, and he found it. Hooray!




We spent the rest of the evening putting it together and putting all the books on it. At last our cardboard boxes are gone.

We are now, officially, moved in! (Name that movie.)

P.S. If you haven't seen this you should: Help I Accidentally Build A Shelf