Ode To My Bookshelves
One of the things I’ll miss about living in a smaller home, is the fact that it forces you to sift through your belongings on a regular basis. Before Christmas and birthdays I take loads of toys to Goodwill in order to make room for the inevitable new items. AndyZ and NikkiZ share a room. If I left every toy in there that anyone had ever purchased for them, there would be no room for beds, cribs, or dressers. It’s already a tight squeeze as it is, and it’s a large room. Clothes also have to be weeded out when new items are purchased. I very rarely put a new item in my drawers or on the rack until an old item has been thrown in the donation bin. We are at capacity in this home. At least at a capacity I’m comfortable with – because I still am a fan of empty spaces. Our attic is full. There are no cars in our garage because it is used for things like kayaks and canoes and bikes and lawnmowers. This limited space means that if something isn’t used or cherished, it is sent off to be used or cherished by someone else. THIS IS A GOOD THING. We should all do this because the things that are sitting untouched in your kitchen, in your child’s toybox, or in your husband’s dresser – those things could be used and loved by someone less fortunate than you.
So – these are the only bookshelves in our home designated for MrZ and I. (Each child has their own bookshelf in their room.) As MrZ and I both really like owning our favorite books, we often buy more books to add to these shelves. There’s several books from a matching set from my grandparent’s home and I also kept a substantial stack of my Dad’s books. (The rest were donated). These factors had our bookshelves overflowing up until last week. I finally went through every book on every shelf and kept those which are truly our favorites. Either because we love the words, or because we’re sentimentally attached to the books themselves. I took pictures of the shelves as I feel like they say so much about us. We’re obviously Geographers by study as we can’t part with many of our old college textbooks. Someone is a huge fan of the Young Adult Fiction section. There’s many spiritual, health, and political books – separated by more poetry than the law should allow. We even have an old-school Plane Trigonometry text book. (Can you guess who that belonged to?) I just love these shelves. I love that there’s random kitschy items on there as well as puzzle boxes. It’s just a great snapshot of who we are as a family, and I love it.
We hope to be moving into a bigger home soon. One that will probably allow us more room for books. While part of me giggles with excitement over this possibility, another part will be sad to see the condensed reflections of our personalities that only a small home can create. I’d like to think I’ll still be diligent about weeding out stuff other people can make better use of, but will I really be if I’m not forced to by limited space? Probably not. Lord knows I’ve lived in much smaller places in the past yet I had no problem filling this house to capacity in five years.
In my defense, we’ve also added two humans to the mix in those five years. That’s gotta give me some sort of an excuse, right?
So. Our shelves. Aren’t they nice? Now…I’ve shown you mine. Will you show me yours?
Ooh, I really like this post. You’re so right about how a bookshelf is a reflection of a family. Our family is facing a somewhat similar transition and I’ve been thinking about moving our books in particular. I’ll show you mine when I get a decent chance to sit down and write about it!
I don’t keep books so I have a hard time understanding while people require bookshelves. Once I buy & read something, I pass it on to someone else. If I want to re-read it, I go to the library.
The first time I read the notes I thought one of them said “I’m a big fan of unicorn collections.” I was like, “Oh, sure, who isn’t?”
I desperately need to organize my bookshelves. I live in a small apartment, but have a lot of books. A lot of them are in boxes in the basement. (I’ve lived here for over five years and still have unpacked boxes.)
Donating books is a good thing. I love having lots of books, but I’m probably going to have to donate some of them. I simply don’t have the space.
Oooh….LOVE your bookshelves! I do not have bookshelves in my home, but I do have a few college literature textbooks and the boxed Twilight series. The rest? They’re usually paperback novels that I read and then donate.
While I do love the feel and smell of a physical book, I’ve gotten quite attached to my Kindle 2, and have tons of stuff on that.
I have bags of clothing, books, and now tons from my vintage dish collection about to be donated. I can’t show you my bookshelf, but I can show you my china cabinet if you like!
BTW, how do you like Cassandra Clare? Someone gifted me that trilogy, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet just because I’m not quite that into YA.
I love, love, love your philosophy on keeping/donating stuff. Please come and talk to my grandparents
We live in 800 sq feet, all 4 of us, on the 4th floor. We also have to sift through books and toys and clothing frequently, but I can promise you, our bookshelves look no where near as organized as yours. They’re filled to capacity plus a few stacks here and there. We keep on buying books and have a hard time getting rid of them.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only person who stacks books vertically and horizontally or any way they’ll fit on my bookshelves. I’m also a fan of going two-deep when I run out of room (you just have to remember what’s in the back row).
I was *just* thinking about doing a post about my kids bookshelves and including photos and now when I do it I’m going to feel like a big copy cat.
As for the thing about getting rid of books when you run out of room — I’m sorry… what?! Books can go anywhere and everywhere and in our house they are in every single room. They’re the thing I have the hardest time getting rid of so we just squeeze them in.
I finally got around to showing you mine. Here it is.
http://kenandbelly.blogspot.com/2010/03/showing-mine.html