Sunday, January 23, 2011

I need a place for books.

The Mister and I used to have tons and tons and tons of books.  More books than we had room for.  Our old house was on the small side, and there wasn't a great place for a lot of bookshelves, so we had three bookshelves in the attic office, and the rest were packed in boxes in our basement.  In 2007 a flood in our basement took care of our excess book problem.

In this house, we have a multitude of bookshelves for the kids books in both the playroom and their bedroom.  I have a hard time getting rid of books. 
my children also have an excess book problem

We only have one bookshelf for ourselves.  Its across from my desk, in the space between the living room and the foyer.  It is packed full. 


In fact, I have all the shelves packed three books deep.  This does not lead to easy viewing.  

Why yes, 95% of my books are romance novels.  I like a happy ending.  Don't judge.  

I would really like a bookshelf where I can actually SEE my books, one layer per shelf.  I don't have a ton of options for this.  There are three possibilities, none of them great.

Option #1:
Put a skinny bookshelf (or two, facing each other) in the bump-out nook in the living room.  I think this is the easiest option.  I'd have to move the table with the lamp.

I would probably use the basic Billy bookshelf from Ikea.


Option #2:
Put an armoire or bookshelf with doors on the wall next to the closet.  This renders the closet unusable.  This is not a huge problem, as I  don't like this narrow, deep closet and it is useless.  It currently holds a vacuum cleaner and art supplies.  It is such a mess, no matter how many times I reorganize.  I would do an armoire with doors and baskets on the lower shelves to hold the art supplies currently in the closet.

If I did this, I really like the Hemnes bookshelf with glass doors, also from Ikea.

But then where would my beautiful red mirror go??

Option #3:
Clean out the art closet and put a bookshelf inside.  It has a very sloped ceiling, so despite being about five feet deep, you could possibly get about two feet worth of bookshelf in there.  
I don't think a Billy bookshelf would fit inside here. Its also pretty narrow, it would be difficult to view the books if you managed to squeeze into the closet with the bookshelf.  I think this option won't really work.  

You think that closet is a mess, be glad I'm not showing you the inside of the turret attic.  

So! That leaves me with the bumpout, or the glass-door shelf.  Thoughts?  

1 comment:

  1. My vote goes to option #1! You could build a little reading nook and have a window seat in there, or a window bench. Maybe even make it a mini library and the bookshelf could be crazy tall, and have a light fixture attached to the wall on the other side. Can't wait to see waht you do!

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