Integral bookends

So we bought some ‘Ivar’ bookcases from Ikea because they are made of real, unreconstituted, renewable tree.

The only problem is that if you don’t want books falling off the ends, the store solution is to buy some ugly, slab-sided metal inserts.

So, instead, we invested in a few extra cross braces and found that, with a bit of care, they could be bent, using only thumb pressure, into some rather elegant shapes. These were then attached as shown and presto, bookcases which hold the books in place. No more frantic avalanches when we extract ‘Wolves in the Walls’ for bedtime story.