#98: The Flat-Pack Shelf

Building a shelf and building a home

Eleanor Scorah
Jul 30, 2017 · 3 min read

Adulthood creeps up on you. You’re at home curled up in your childhood bedroom re-reading your favourite books and then suddenly you’re building flat-packed furniture in your first flat.

I laid out all the pieces of this shelf in order. I examined the instructions. And screw by screw it progressed from flat to 3D, from useless pile of wood to book-holder and plant-presenter. Admittedly, I had my Dad’s help, and the assistance of his fancier screwdriver, but now he is gone and I am left sitting opposite the shelf, wondering where the instructions to my life are, what are the screws that will hold it together, what are the books that are filling in the gaps?

I have lived here for a week now, and, revealing me as a true materialist, it is objects like this shelf, or the wooden tray from the charity shop, or the colourful rug I carted home on public transport, that are making it feel like home. Renting is strange. Everything feels borrowed. So to have something definitely mine, built by my own hands, is important to me. This is apparently a recognisable trend among ‘millenials’, with small, quirky, easily removable items experiencing a spike in popularity; a way for young people restricted by money and the conditions of renting to personalise their home.

To slot familiar books onto its shelves, to top it with my favourite trinkets, and, of course, a plant or two, is a way of marking my territory, of saying this is where I have chosen to live, this is my life now, and I am going to make it my own: I am going to make it my home.

It feels wrong to me to be so dependent upon buying things, to know that each little amount of money I spend on this flat really does make a difference. As I wrote in The Iron, I am also wary of owning too many things when I do not know which way my life will turn next, when I will next overfill my Dad’s car and move on. So now that the objects are bought, the landscape adjusted, I think the next step is to use these objects to truly live here.

I shall take books from the shelves and curl up against my new cushion and read. I shall feel my bare feet against the colourful rug in the morning, softer than the flat’s dull carpet. I shall load the tray with food and coffee and sink into the sofa to watch a film. I shall occupy this space that a signature on a contract proves is, at least for now, my own.

And I shall be glad that my life isn’t flat-packed like this shelf, that there is no discernible end product, that it will continue to surprise, and that I can continue adding new pieces to it every day.



Eleanor is a writer using her skills in over-analysis to write a weekly blog post about everyday objects. To read more, check out her blog Object, a collaboration with fellow Medium blogger Katie.

Adventure into the world of objects - their significance, their stories, their histories - from the mundane to the obscure, one random thing at a time.

Eleanor Scorah

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Objects

Objects

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