The Bookcase--Not a fairy tale

After I finished cleaning the area of my night stand I was feeling pretty good about starting on the area around my bookcase.

 The bookcase sits just outside of the closet and has become a catchall for things I don't quite feel like putting up.  The intention is there, "Oh, I'll put that up in a minuet," but the follow through somehow gets lost.

Seeing the placement of a sweater that is to small for me stuffed on a shelf makes me pause and say, "What is wrong with you? And why are we keeping that??"  So with my tail tucked between my legs I began pulling things from the shelves and putting them in the floor.  Everything had to come down because my intention was to move the shelf closer to the side wall.

Once I saw how much stuff (mostly books though) I had stored on the shelves I thought I might have to call in for back up.

The one thing I love almost as much as my quilting stuff, is my books.  There is nothing like holding a great book and turning the pages to find out what hides inside.  I hope that one day when I'm senile and don't know my name, my grandchildren will go through my books and think that I must have been pretty cool or off my rocker crazy.  Weeding my book collection was one of the hardest things I've had to do.  Seeing this mess on the floor and knowing I had to make decisions, caused the irrational part of me to think that moving and starting over might just be the easiest choice. 

In the meantime, my daughter was performing the same task in her room, but having a blast doing so.  Through out her elementary school days, I accumulated quite a book collection for her.  I had a bad Scholastic Book Club addiction.  However, she did not inherit my passion for books.  Reading was not something in those days that came easy for her and most set on the shelf never opened.  We boxed up all of the books she had out grown and donated them to one of her teachers.  She assured me that her students would love them.  This made my heart feel happy again.  In the end I would just like to see them loved and used.

After a nice glass of moscato, I returned to the mess I had made and I have to say I was pleased with my progress.

When it comes to organizing I'm a complete loss so I turned to my dear friend Pinterest.  This lead to the purchase of two fabric covered storage boxes to house my paperback books.  It's amazing how many more you can fit in that space just by doing that.  I also read several articles about adding visual interest to the shelves my arranging the books in different ways.  Most of the things that were in the floor went into the yard sale box or made their way back to their original spots.  The boards are the only oddball thing that remain in the space and they will have to wait till I pull the mattress off the bed to go home.  

By moving the bookcase further down the wall I made space for another future project from Pinterest.

I found this half table on Larcie Bird's blog and I love it!  It makes me think "Why is a raven like a writing desk?"  (If you haven't noticed, I love Alice in Wonderland)  In her blog they actually found a table at a yard sale and chopped that baby in half.  I'm not sure if I shall take that route or possibly just build one and use an upholstered storage cube for a bench.  I think it will be a great place for my laptop and to use as a small office space.  Not including the closet, I'm half way done with this room.  Back to cleaning!