book ledges in the kids' room are done!

And I have to say they are awesome.

The before:

and the after:

I've wanted to do these shelves ever since I saw this inspiration picture a few weeks ago.  We used eight Ribba shelves from Ikea. These take up much less room than the bookshelf and changing table that were in the space originally.

The blue sun at the top is from Costa Rica and was a gift from my mother in law.  I'm so pleased that it goes so well with the bedding in the kids' room.  

The room is almost done.  The only thing remaining is to find some art for over the dressers.  I'm debating between blown-up posters of the kids (I want!) or using some art we already have (free!).   Big reveal soon, I hope.

Whatcha think?  

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?  

Bookshelves: Before + After

The dining room is pretty close to being done. I think. I'm liking the way it looks. At least until I move again next year.

I note that in the picture above the room looks pretty large. Practically large enough to put in a buffet or something on the left! But its really not.

My mother in law recently reorganized, and gave me these two bookshelves that used to flank the tv armoire. I'd been looking for something to put on either side of the dining room window, and they were perfect. And free.

Here is what they looked like before:

I painted them Benjamin Moore's Decorator White. Here's the interior painted a pale blue (I think its China Blue by Benjamin Moore.)

Here's the second intermediate phase. Apparently I didn't take a closeup of the shelves with the first fabric I chose, so below is a closeup of the turquoise quatrefoil fabric. I took that pic with my phone, so the color isn't very accurate; it was a very bright turquoise.


Here's the finished product. (Yes, the pirate ship usually docks there.) I recovered the back with Robert Allan Kiki Pinata fabric.
Most of the items on the shelves are from Home Goods. I've been on a ginger jar kick lately. The milk glass knob is from Hardware Hut. I actually have 12 of those identical knobs, except they seem to have run off when we moved, so I had to order new ones. Grr.