Window Seat and Book-shelves Combined,
made of boxes. Eight soap-boxes of the same size are required for the shelves, and a packing-box about two feet high, two feet in width, and as long as the window is wide, for the seat.
Remove the tops and two sides of the soap-boxes, and bore holes with a red-hot poker in one corner of the bottoms of six of the boxes, and in two of the tops which have been removed, making the holes one inch from either edge (Fig. 374). In the other two boxes bore in the same place, but not entirely through, making the holes about half an inch deep.
Place these last two on the floor and pile the others on top of them, three on each, nailing the bottom of each box to the top edge of the one beneath it. On the two upper boxes nail the tops in which the holes have been made.
Have ready two slender bamboo rods about four feet long. Insert a rod in the hole in the top of an upper box and let it pass down, slipping it through the holes in the bottoms of the other boxes and fitting it in the cavity in the lower box.
Fig. 374.—Hole in Corner of Box for Book-shelves.
In like manner put the other rod in place through the other pile of boxes.
If the packing-box has a cover, it should be fastened on with hinges, so that it may be used for a shoe-box as well as a seat; if it has not, turn it upside down, place the soap-boxes at each end and nail them to it.
Paint the shelves black or the color of the wood-work in the room, and upholster the seat and the boxes on either side of it with cushions made of strong muslin stuffed with excelsior and covered with cretonne.