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especially when I added the full set of encyclopedias that no one's opened in years, and that were probably a bit outdated.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

Under the Wire

Bless his heart, Hubby remembered I needed to have my "Impossible Challenge" finished by the end of the month, so he came home and installed the top trim on the bigger bookcase tonight after work.  He boasted that he'd gotten it completed for me, just under the wire!


So.... Tah-DAAAAAHHH!

It wasn't quite in time for the grand unveiling, but it's still quite a big deal for us to have a project completely finished, trim and all, well past "barely functional."  Hubby says he's changed and his new practice for 2012 is to finish things.  This is a great start!

The Challenge is (Mostly) Met

Today I am happy to unveil my new family library.  (See previous related and progress posts here)  I have to admit I could have used another couple of days... I can't say it's completely complete, as Hubby is still working at getting the top trim on the larger bookshelf (3 sections of 7 shelves each at 21" wide).  But I gladly forgive that, since he was so nice to build me a whole other unit (1 section of 7 shelves each at 24") to add on the other side of the room when the first one was filling so fast. (And he's been busy working on the legs for our island.)  Added 2/1/12:  See finished pic at Under the Wire

Labels thanks to our
Brother PT  Labeler.
I hope to change to transparent labels
with the black lettering.

Also, since the new shelf section was installed just this weekend (its top trim included), I just painted the shelf edges yesterday (Sunday), so I can't label the book sections it holds yet.  

Still thinking... Along with those 2 minor issues that could already keep it from being considered 'finished,' I am noting some foreseeable challenges that means this project will likely continue to evolve over the next few months.  
First of all, I have noticed that we could use a few more categories, namely Business, Finance, Humor, and Politics.  I'm also not convinced that I like the flow of the categories, or that I have room to add even one more book to some of the shelves, so any new purchases or discovery of other stored books will require changes.  Like with our kitchen, I'll use it for awhile and make changes, as needed.

As a functional tool... I have to say that this is the most and fastest we've ever completed a project from beginning to end.  Our books are reasonably organized by category, and we can now use or read many books I'd forgotten about or couldn't get to in cramped and crowded storage.  

The "Before"

This is much better than having a haphazard mixture of books on the floor lining the walls of our dining and sitting rooms, while others were crammed under the stairs.  I am happy.








As home decor... First of all, it's good to have our dining room table back, as it's been
 mostly covered in books, shelves, and tools for the last couple of weeks, so our family dinners have suffered, as has the overall neatness of the house!  


My original vision for the bookshelf was to make it as 'invisible' as possible, since its necessary 9 foot height could easily overwhelm the smallish room.  I kept the lines hefty and simple, and thought painting it the color of our walls (Benjamin Moore Gettysburg Gray), but in BM's Satin Impervo alkyd enamel, would help.  



I originally wanted the whole cabinet in the gray, with the shelves in wood, to give an appearance of floating shelves.  But it was easier for Hubby to lacquer the whole inside, so I settled for gray on the exterior and shelf faces.  I think I might still like to have the back wall of the unit painted, so I can always go back and do as Kristin of My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia showed in her post, My Bookshelves are dressed!  A very lovely result.

I'd always viewed paint as a quick and wonderful way to change the personality of a room.  I've now made it a little more difficult to ever change the wall color of our dining room, since it will mean the bookshelves will contrast, or need to be repainted, too.  One thing to think about before you decide to match built-ins to walls for this monochromatic look.


I am happy to link this post to the "Imagine the Impossibilities" party graciously hosted by Thistlewood Farm, Eclectically Vintage, A Sort of Fairytale, The Space Between, It All Started With Paint, and The Cottage Market, who also challenged us all to accomplish a difficult project in the first place.  I can't wait to see ALL the different kinds of daunting tasks taken on by many, many different bloggers.  Should be fun, and full of great inspiration for the many-more challenges awaiting completion around here!

Party on!!!  --I'm also joining the Link Party at One Project Closer!

One Week Down, One to Go

The, time-limited "Impossible Task" I introduced last week has been a little difficult!  Not that the "impossible" wouldn't or shouldn't be expected to be...

Can't have snow without taking a
break to enjoy it!

It's just that life still insists on happening.  Snow, ice, and wind storms with all 9 of us home for a week,  literally 24/7.  Hubby and I trying to work on things in the same area at the same time.  A birthday.  Football playoffs.  A higher than usual demand on baked goods and food, in general.  And, of course, who could turn down requests for snow fun, sledding (makeshift sleds made of ski sets) and viewing the snow fort construction that gave way to snow-baseball-turned-snowball-fight?


Add to that we are trying to refinance, and the appraiser was due here at 11 AM last Wednesday, so there was lots of cleaning and projects underway for days before.  But he couldn't make it here that day, and finally called to let me know 2 1/2 hours after the appointed time.  He rescheduled for 11 AM Friday (so the troops dove in to house-neatening again), but called, at least early that time, saying he still couldn't get here, and rescheduled for 1 PM today.  
--Today, during yet another bout of industrious spiffing, he forgot that we'd agreed on a later hour, and showed up at 11.  :-/


Anyway, I have managed to continue to make progress, and still plan to have my home library complete for sharing, on time, next week.

Shelves on the right LEFT, all the way to the
back wall housed (& hid) books of all types

There have been lots of physical aspects to this task, including having and finishing the bookshelf, crawling into and through the under-stair storage to extricate a lot of them from shelves hemmed in by various and sundry items, and shelving and reshelving the tomes (some heavy!), as required for organization and fit.  But a big part of this adventure was the mental challenge of deciding on an organizational system.  


I researched home libraries on the internet and came across Organizing Books - How to Organize a Library on GoodHousekeeping.com.  GH can be a great resource for home-related issues, but not as much this time.  I didn't find the suggestion to consider organizing all of our books by color or alphabetically to be of much help, and they didn't offer any suggestions about how to organize by their 3rd suggest method, genre... So I moved on to consideration of a more official system.


At first, I thought I'd probably 'go big.' and would label and organize like our local library, using the Dewey Decimal system.  In researching that, I found that some people prefer the Library of Congress system, of which I had heard, but was unfamiliar.  I printed out the categories for both and compared.  Dewey has a smaller number of categories to help separate things, but was more familiar.  Both seemed too complex for our needs, and I had other things I needed to consider, such as having most-often used books within a reasonable reach in a unit that's almost 9 feet tall.


I ended up grouping books into sections that would work for us, and placing them in an order that seemed the most natural for how we'd need and view them.


As a result, here are our categories (and sub-categories) I decided on,  and the approximate sequence.  I flexed and adjusted as I loaded the shelves :

• Bible and Bible-related (devotionals, commentaries, children's Bibles)
• Parenting
• Reference
• Homeschooling (guides, references)
• Language Arts (reading, handwriting, grammar, writing, vocabulary)
• Math (early, general, algebra, geometry, business & practical arts-related)
• Science (general, earth, biology [humans, animals, plants], physics, engineering)
• Geography
• Pacific NW
• History
• Biographies
• Antique Books and Classics   They don't necessarily fit the sequence, but they provide an attractive focal point in the upper center section.
• Crafts
• Art (history, painting, drawing, drafting)
• Architecture 
• Construction
• Home Decor
• Recreation
• Foreign Languages
• Textiles and Sewing
• Fiction (picture books, early readers, young adult, adult)

I ended up with more books than shelves, so my hero, Hubby, is working on another section of shelves to place across the room in the spot he'd suggested beside the dining room door.  That one will hold the first 3 sections shown above: Bible, Parenting, and Reference works.  The rest are happily at home in the bigger shelf, awaiting labels, and the final unveiling.  Please tune in next week for that!

The "Impossible" in 2 Weeks

Drawn by the beautiful bathroom remodel photo I saw in Nesting Place's 2012 Home Goals Party, I traveled over to Thistlewood Farm to have a better look. While there, I was prompted to join the "Imagine the Impossibilites" Challenge hosted by her and a group of other great bloggers. The assignment was to take on a daunting task and share the completed result in a link party on January 31st.

The daunting task I'll be tackling is gathering our enormous amounts of books, now scattered about the house, into an organized library, utilizing the great new bookshelf Hubby built for our dining room.


I need to finish painting the shelf edges, and Hubby will put on the top molding. We'll actually have a completely finished project in our home! Too often we get to "usable" and stop, declaring "good enough for now," only to have "now" extend to years.




I will collect the books from bedrooms, under the stairs, and try to dig out the ones stored outside in boxes, hoping they're still in decent condition. I am investigating different ways to catalog and shelve the books so that we can group them in a practical way and find what we need when we want it... What a concept!


Just joining now, I have only 2 weeks to make this happen, but deadlines are good motivators. I'm excited to have this big task accomplished!

*********************************************

When I told Thistlewood Farm I'd be joining them, I mentioned that my real "impossible" task was organizing our photos, prints and digital, but I wasn't feeling brave enough for that yet. But maybe I'll get to it sooner, at least for the digital files, after reading about My Memories digital scrapbooking and the software Giveaway! at Beauty 4 Ashes.  You might want to take a look and enter, too.

Books off the Floor!

...And in time for our Christmas party on Saturday.  


The painted trim pieces, top moulding, and side panel are yet to be installed on our new bookshelf, but it's up and working, so that's what counts.  













I thought you might want to see more pictures than the glimpses shown in the party pictures on Monday.  

The floor now has some catching up to do.
The Brazilian Cherry darkened around the books that
 used to line the walls.

One of the spots Hubby
thinks needs a bookshelf

Hubby loves them and keeps finding little bits of wall space for which he wants to make more.  ;-)  Prince Steadfast says it makes the room seem taller.


We have many more books I can dig out now, so it won't have any empty shelves for long.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

The scent of fresh lacquer and this stack of material leaning against the wall Monday night let me know the blessing of having our new dining room bookshelf is imminent!




After dinner, the action started.  I took a pic of the pieces lying on the dining room table....

"Wait!  Show the pretty side of the birch!"

There...Way better.  ;-)

Then, with a team approach, the kitchen became the workshop.                                                                                                                                                                

Our photographer, Prince CuddleBunny,
got a bit creative with his angles

Definitely not usable yet, but soon!!  Maybe in time to have the books off the floor for this weekend's family Christmas party...?