Library progress

I do a crap job with before and after pictures. Otherwise I could show you what I'm dealing with in this library I'm working on.

Let me lay out the room for you.
There's the front wall with two big windows.
Turn to your left and there's the side wall. It's plaster over brick.
Left again, and there's the main wall. Future home of bookshelves. On the other side are stairs.
Left once more and there's a big archway with the front door on the other side.

The front wall is a mess. I'm doing almost nothing with it because I eventually want it framed out and insulated.

Once I got under the wood panelling and wallpaper of the side wall I found that, for some reason, the plaster was popping away from the wall about chest high. And near the front wall was a big crack that let you see into the neighbor's house once the wallpaper was taken away. I knocked away the loose stuff and started packing the holes with drywall mud as well as giving the rest of the wall a skim just to fill tiny cracks and pits. This all helped, but the wall was still ... textured? It bowed and flexed and rippled. I took time to even it some, but there's only so much one can do. Finally, last night, I painted the wall. Mostly. There's a radiator near the bottom of the crack. I couldn't get all the wallpaper off or paint, completely. Once I find my edger I should be able to do more. I got some undrilled, featureless doors that I plan to put wallpaper on and hang on that wall to give it some character and cover up some of the other character.

The main wall I tore out completely and put up new drywall. It will have the bookshelves soon. Half inch black gas pipe supports with plyboo shelving. Three levels 14 inches deep and six more 7 inch deep shelves the rest of the way to the ceiling. The bottom three run all 11 ft across the room while the rest are 8 ft and alternate which wall they're touching. This leaves space to display larger things as well as making sure I don't have to extend the boards.

The arched wall I tried to punk out on, but in the end I still tore it down and put up new drywall. It's just a wall, but I should be able to hang some pictures on it.

I mention all this because I got to paint the room last night. I wanted to put up shelves several weeks ago, but I couldn't quite do it. Just a bit more to do, which turns into one-more-thing and then another-thing and then... well, you know how it works. I have 6 inch baseboards which I hope to install no later than next weekend. Hopefully, tonight or tomorrow. With them in place I can start putting up shelves, which gets my books out of the basement, and much of the rest of the house starts falling into place from there.