The Unthinkable

Get rid of books?!!!!!!!  Not me.  --Well, until now.  
















I recently found 4 or 5 bins full of books in our outdoor storage.  But as you may remember from our home library project, the new bookshelves, even with the extra shelf I had Hubby add, were FULL.  


I LOVE books, and was sure that every book I'd brought into the house had value... If not today, 'someone' may want to read it 'later.'  I thought about how to add more shelves, then got a little real, and decided it was time to cut some of the tomes loose instead.  Really, there HAD to be books in there I could reasonably guess that we'd never use or read.


I'd expected to be showing you shelves with plenty of extra space... Maybe even room for decorative items...


Not surprisingly, I wasn't able to be as cut-throat as I'd imagined, and was only weeding out a few, as I went through each shelf.  I removed duplicates, homeschool resources that didn't suit us, and books I'd bought from obsolete book sales from schools or libraries that were just "good deal" spontaneous purchases, but not thoughtfully chosen.  





It came to quite a pile, especially when I added the full set of encyclopedias that no one's opened in years, and that were probably a bit outdated. 


I even boxed up 2 bins-full of picture books our kids have outgrown, to await enjoyment by grandchildren.  

But still short on space for the 'History section,' it meant a major rearrange.  I moved all the parenting/Bible/character/biographies from the small shelf section to the big wall, swapping with all the juvenile and classic fiction.  


I no longer had room for some of the adult fiction, and was pretty sad to lose my display shelf for antique books, shown in the center of this photo.  
This special shelf isolated the more fragile books and highlighted them. I think it also added a bit of intentional design to the wall. But, this left me room for the history and government books, and a section of home maintenance and decor books in with the other non-fiction, so it was the best choice.  Function over form for this season of my life.


It was good to go through the collection, not only to trade unnecessary books for space, but to be reminded at what great books we have, that are going largely unnoticed.  I need to find a new way to encourage reading... and starting with what we have. 


Newly arranged shelves... Probably not looking much different than you've seen before:

What I didn't expect in all this, though, was the sudden and deep sadness I experienced...


To be shared another day.