That Time I Accidentally Organized My Bookshelves

Last weekend, I was looking at my shelves and realizing how many of them were precariously doubled up to such an extent that I couldn't see half of the books on many of them. I remembered I had a small, lightweight bookcase I hid away in a closet after I got tired of constantly re-shelving it. For some reason, my son was particularly attracted to tearing everything off those particular shelves. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. He still loves to pull his own books down, but for the most part, the "adult" books don't hold as much appeal. Nor does the simple act of pulling everything down just because he can (for the most part).

So this small bookcase was a $5 garage sale find many years ago. Instead of flat shelves, each level has two wooden slats that hold the books on a backward slant (hard to explain, but bear with me). It is the perfect setup for small books like mass market paperbacks. So I was indeed using it for my mass markets which meant it held a mishmash of genres. Sorting books by size doesn't exactly result in an efficient or logical organizational system. But there was one benefit of this system: it actually wasn't full -- in fact, it was only about half full. So I figured that just by using that bookcase again, I should be able to declutter my main shelves a bit, as long as I figured out what to put on it so I would be utilizing the whole thing.

I started thinking about how many Newbery books I have in my collection, how I want to read more of them, and how disorganized and hard they are to find and it hit me -- this could be my Newbery shelf! So I told my son we were doing a "project" and he helped me carry all those shiny medal-ed books from all the places they were haphazardly occupying all over the house. After I saw approximately how many there were, I made the decision to keep series and sequels together even if all the individual books were not Newberys.

Don't mind the makeshift quilt/blackout curtain.

Hardcovers and over-sized paperbacks fit as long as I put them on the top shelf. From the left, I started with stand-alone Medalists, followed by stand-alone Honors, then filled in the rest with series/sequels that include either Medal and/or Honor books. Boy, do I have a lot of Newbery reading to look forward to!

So once I had this Newbery bookcase all set, the rest of our books were even messier than before I started. The only other spot in the house with extra room was my nightstand bookcase. It had been housing a completely random assortment of old ARCs (::hangs head in shame::) and newly acquired books with no where else to go. I pulled those all off and decided I wanted to do another themed bookcase: poetry and novels-in-verse. 

Hey Julie, that top shelf is starting to smile! :)

I just love how both of these turned out! I can now so easily navigate two categories of books I'm actively interested in reading more of. I can actually see what all my choices are when I want to pick up my next Newbery or novel-in-verse, or I'm looking for my next poetry collection to dip into.

So the "accidentally" part of this blog post title comes into play because I really thought I was just going to fill up one bookcase (which turned into two!) that had some extra space so I could de-clutter the main shelves a bit. But once I was underway, everything just got messier and messier and I ended up pulling down almost all of the YA, Middle Grade, and Children's books from my main shelves, so I could do a revamp. I finally figured out where to stash away the rest of the Christmas books because as much as I'd love to keep them out, I just don't have room for all the seasonal stuff year-round. (A privileged problem to have, I know.) My shelves are not alphabetical, but they are back to being grouped roughly by type rather than like an archaeological site where you had to dig around for various piles grouped based on when they were added to the collection. There is still a lot of doubling up, but not so much that I can't see what's in the back layer anymore.

Once I had most of the books back on the main shelves, I realized there was still a bit of overflow if I wanted to keep the doubling-up in check. So I moved a few classic middle grade series (Paddington Bear, The Borrowers, The Moomins, and Enid Blyton), a random anthology that didn't fit anywhere else, and my short stack of library/read-soon books to this little shelf in the guest room.

Of course, everything now fits with basically no wiggle room, so I now need to: 1. keep myself in check with the book buying (hello, budget!) and 2. do a real clean out. I know the best way to organize any kind of stuff is to first get rid of some of it, but I did not have the brain power to make culling decisions that day, so I didn't even try. But a student at my church is running a book drive at the end of the month, so I'm thinking by then I will make a better attempt to see what books should move onto a new home.

* * * * *

How do you organize your bookshelves? I'd love to know!

Also, I'm so excited to see if any of my middle grade books need to migrate to the Newbery shelf when the winners are announced tomorrow (Monday, Feb 12th)! There will be a live webcast of the ALA Youth Media Awards, including Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, and more starting at 8AM Mountain time. Are there any books you're rooting for?

A Bookish Decorating Project, #2

A while back, I shared my bookish decorating project for my son's nursery. Before I ever even started working on that one, I had another decorating project in the works for our living room, a.k.a. my "library room." My basic idea was a *collage* of favorite bookish quotes with some bookish artwork/prints mixed in. I already had a bunch of matching frames in different sizes, so I started filling them in one by one based on what fit in best where...

So what's in the collage?

1. Five of my favorite bookish quotes printed out on white cardstock in various fonts:

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you know, the more places you'll go" ― Dr. Seuss

“And every book, you find, has its own social group--friends of its own it wants to introduce you to, like a party in the library that need never, ever end.” ― How to be a Woman, by Caitlin Moran

“I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good.” ― The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” ― Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by J.K. Rowling

“A children's story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children's story in the slightest.”― C.S. Lewis 

(Note: I have since read the book of essays by C.S. Lewis where I believe this last one is taken from. It seems wherever I first read it had the wording a bit off, but I'm leaving it for now. The message is the same regardless!)

2. Two illustrated quotes printed from Goodreads' monthly newsletter:

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." ― Jorge Luis Borges

"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities" ― J.K. Rowling

3. A copy of my UK Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone cover.

4. An illustrated postcard of The Elephant House, the cafe I visited in Edinburgh, Scotland where J.K. Rowling wrote parts of Harry Potter.

5. A print that came with my collector's edition of The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Here's what my reading corner looks like :)

As you can tell, it's a bit Harry Potter-heavy :)

Has anyone else ever tried any bookish decorating projects? I'd love to hear about them!

A Bookish Decorating Project for the Nursery

I can't believe my son is 3 weeks old already! I know that is not really a lot of time, but it just feels like it's flying by already. As my due date approached last month, I kept myself busy with projects around the house and I had some serious nesting going on. One of my favorite projects was decorating the nursery. I knew from the beginning I didn't really want to do a "theme" where we bought perfectly coordinated sets from a baby store, but I definitely wanted to add some bookishness to his room.

I mentioned a while back that I wanted to do this wall art project and frame pages from favorite childhood books of mine and my husband's. But in the end, I had a really hard time tracking down the books my husband remembers and I truthfully couldn't come up with a favorite of my own -- I remember loving story-time with my parents, but there wasn't any one book that stood out in my memory. So, since an unofficial animal theme seemed to be forming anyway after we chose the bumpers for his crib, a lamp for the room, and received an adorable bookcase at our baby shower, I decided to go with three different children's books/series that feature animals: Make Way for Ducklings, Humphrey the elephant, and Paddington Bear:

Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey

Humphrey books, by Sally Hunter

Paddington Bear books, by Michael Bond
(Top two frames)

Paddington Bear books, by Michael Bond
(Bottom two frames)

I am thrilled with how this project came out and it really was very simple. I already had the frames because I got a great deal on packaged sets back when I first started hanging pictures around our house and still had a bunch leftover. This nursery project actually filled up the remaining frames I had, so that was a few less piles of "stuff" laying around our house which is always good! Then all I had to do was buy extra copies (some new, some used) of books I already bought for the baby and knew had artwork I loved and would fit in the frames. I tore out the pages I needed, trimmed them to size, framed them (some with mats, some without), and hung them up.

My Dad was quite impressed with the project and had me send him these pictures so he could show them off (in addition to baby pictures of course -- he's afraid the people at his office are going to start avoiding him!) I highly recommend this project for any book lover looking for easy DIY wall art for a baby's room -- or any room! And the best part is that you get to go book shopping first :)

The Post We've All Been Waiting For -- BOOKSHELVES!

I say "we" because I know many of you have been wanting to see photos of the rest of my bookcases, but I've just been dying to get my precious books out of boxes. The fact that I can finally write this post and share the end of this project with you is very exciting for me. Almost six months after moving in, I am finally, officially, fully unpacked. YAY! It's a good feeling I tell you, a very good feeling indeed.

I've already shared my kitchen cookbook bookshelves and my bedroom nightstand bookshelves, but let's be honest, this barely scratched the surface in terms of "reading" books (as opposed to cookbooks, which are clearly my other obsession). The remainder of my collection is now in the "living room" with a small number also residing in the den. They say a house is not a home without books, but clearly a room is not a room unless it has a bookshelf -- in my house, anyway!

Let's start off with the last two tiny shelves in the den. First, I have a small bookcase that fits mass-market paperbacks perfectly. Instead of taking up space on shelves that easily fit much larger books, I put a few authors I have a lot of books for in this format here:

A $5 yard sale find!

Then I have another small bookcase I'm using for reference books (home/gardening/crafting), Nick's Star Wars & Yankee books, and coffee table books. I use our coffee table as a work station, so no room for them there! The piles on top are library books, so those are not there permanently.

This one they were giving away at a yard sale --
the man couldn't hoist it into my car fast enough!

Now onto the really good stuff! Our living room has officially been dubbed the "reading room" by my aunt, and I can't say she's wrong. I didn't really want a formal living room because I know that even while entertaining, everyone will gravitate toward the couch in the den anyway since it's right off the kitchen. I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on living room furniture that wouldn't really get used, so I asked myself how I would really like to use this room and, of course, the answer was to have a quiet place to read. To facilitate that, I went all out and got this ridiculously over-sized reading chair and ottoman. Heaven. Pure heaven. If only I had more time to curl up in it!

Please ignore the "construstion corner" on the left
filled with supplies for our many homeowner projects!

Other than the big-ass reading chair, the only other furniture in this room is the bookcases (Hence, "reading room.") I do want some additional seating eventually -- maybe a pair of high-back chairs or a bench under the window, we'll see -- but I don't want to overcrowd this room because someday I may move my desk out here.

My dad wanted to build us bookshelves, but wood-working is a new hobby for him that he'd like to do more of when he retires, so we decided a giant bookcase was a bit too big of a project to start out with. So we went with these shelves from IKEA instead which were the perfect balance of quality and value for us. They are actually 3 separate units from the HEMNES line installed to look like a custom corner unit. They are made of solid wood and I challenge anyone to find solid wood bookcases for a better price. Granted, the back is not wood, but I'll take that compromise since it is pressboard which is much better quality than just cardboard which I've seen on other units. I had to put them together, but at this point I am a pro at that kind of thing!

No one was more surprised than I was to realize there actually would be a few free shelves -- room to grow!

They are obviously not built-ins, but they fit into the space we had perfectly -- next to the fireplace, but not too close; filling up most of the wall, but not so much that it looks too over-sized.

I love that little wine rack I found at the Christmas Tree Shoppe -- its latest addition is this adorable bottle my aunt brought as a house-warming gift:

How freakin' cute?!

As for organization, I decided to divide up by general categories and then go alphabetically by author. So on the left I have adult fiction:

In the middle, I have the end of the adult fiction, books-about-books, memoir/non-fiction/misc....

and classics.

And on the right, I have all the young adult/middle grade books.

Looks like the collection has already grown --
1 more shelf filled since I took the earlier photos!

And I couldn't resist creating a special Harry Potter shelf. My husband had the original hardcovers on his nightstand bookcase, but I wanted to display our collection all together. Also, we remembered he had lent out a few of "his" books that won't fit on his bookcase once they are returned if we didn't do some re-arranging.

So our official collection includes all 7 hardcovers, the (newly arrived!) 15th anniversay paperback set, a British paperback edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone I picked up while in Scotland, the 2-book set of school books (Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages), a regular edition and special collector's edition of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, and the rather frightening looking thing on top is The Monster Book of Monsters which isn't an actual book, but a gift from Harry Potter World from Nick's parents, which certainly fits the theme!

This might sound really cheesy, but our house feels so much more homey to me now that I have the reading nook and bookshelves set up. What can I say, I'm a book-lover through and through!

More Bookshelves!

It's been over a month since my first house/bookshelf update, so I think it's about time for a follow-up. If you thought nothing else could possibly go wrong (like we did!), that is unfortunately not true. Not to be a Debbie downer, but owning a house can be a real bitch sometimes. Seriously. On the upside, our basement has stayed dry and the sewer has remained clear -- thank God for small miracles! But on the downside...

1. On multiple occasions I have heard the tell-tale buzz of a bee. Cue the panic, heart palpitations, and shrieking. Ugh. I hate bees. I really hate being the only one home to deal with a bee, but such are the hazards of working from home. I know they are good for the environment and all, but they do not belong in my house. They belong outside in the environment, not freaking the living daylights out of me because we are in enclosed quarters together. At least they're not honeybees so I guess I don't have to feel too bad about being a bee-killer.

2. The laundry room has proven to be even more of a disaster than we thought. Not only did we need to run a new hot water line and clean/repair mold damage, but when we went to replace the floor and pulled up the insulation underneath, we found roots and leaves mixed in with the insulation. If you're thinking that roots and leaves on the inside of a house is a bad thing, you would be correct. It is a very bad thing. Turns out the sill and one of the floor joists is rotten and the great outdoors just creeped it's way in. Two months ago, I didn't know what a sill was. Come to think of it, I kind of wish I still didn't! We're getting that fixed this weekend though so the wall doesn't just crumble or collapse on us one day. (I said it's a bitch, didn't I?)

3. And the latest thing we spotted was some mysterious roof damage. Our starting-to-get-old-but-is-totally-fine-for-now roof no longer seems to be totally fine. No leaks yet, but we want to get this figured out before that happens.

It really is amazing how a home in "average condition" with a few issues to be addressed can so quickly start falling apart. It's almost like the house knew the old owners wouldn't bother to fix anything so it held itself together as long as it could and now that we're here, it's breathing a sigh of relief and saying, "I can relax now, these new people will take care of me if I break!" OK now that I am anthropomorphizing my house, I think it's time to move on to the fun stuff...

Despite all this craziness, bookshelves just make me happy. My dad would like to build us some bookcases for the living room, but he's helping us with so many other things (::cough:: fixing the laundry room floor ::cough::), that it's not really on the horizon yet. But I still have a few new photos to share.

First, we have a second cookbook bookcase in the kitchen. Yes, I have more than one bookcase just for cookbooks. (You can see the first one here. I've shuffled things around a bit, but they are still both full.) Ironically, we are so busy with house stuff I am mostly making grilled cheese sandwiches these days, but hopefully some more adventurous recipes will be in my near future.

And then we have matching bookcases in the master bedroom we are using in place of nightstands. We came to this "design" decision for purely practical reasons. Do you have any idea how much nightstands cost at a halfway decent furniture store? Way. Too. Much. They are like half the price of a dresser, but with only a fraction of the storage space. So I asked myself, what do I really need a nightstand for? To hold a lamp, a box of tissues, a cup of water, and a book or two. So swap in short bookcases for nightstands and voila! They can hold all those things plus waaay more than just one or two books. Did I mention that bookcases make me happy?

Also, we really need curtains...

My husband's side has some of "his" books. The Nicholas Flamel series, The Mysterious Benedict Society, Septimus Heap, I Am Number Four, & various Rick Riordan books. Harry Potter and Dan Brown are only there temporarily, because those will definitely be in the living room someday. We'll probably swap those out for the original Percy Jackson series which my aunt is currently borrowing. 

Then there is my side: 

I've used the top shelf for (mostly) review books.

The rest of the top shelf and the entire bottom shelf is dedicated to the non-review books I currently want to read the most. The tip of the TBR iceberg, if you will. It's a mix of new releases, recent acquisitions, next-in-a-series, and books I've chosen for various challenges. My side will definitely get shuffled around a lot more than my husband's!

It may be a while before the rest of our books come out of boxes, but I'm really happy with what we have so far. I'm a little afraid to see how many more bookcases we will need -- by the time this is complete, I really may have my very own library!