A Reading Rainbow

It has always been a dream of mine to have my own personal library. Built-in bookshelves, a ladder, a comfy reading chair and an abundance of natural lighting, those would be the makings of my perfect home library. When we moved into our home in Edmonton almost three years ago, there was a small room at the front of the house that was perfect for setting up my little library. Of course, built-ins and a ladder weren't really in the budget, but I did have a comfy reading chair and there was a nice big window in the room. A girl will take what she can get.

I had originally organized my books alphabetically by author last name, not paying attention to genre. Over time, my bookshelves became one hot mess as new books were placed haphazardly onto the shelves wherever they could fit. The shelves also became a dumping ground for knickknack's that otherwise had no home.

When we started to declutter, organize and clean up our home to put it on the market, I got to work on my library. It's the first room you see when you enter our home and the room is also visible from the front porch. I wanted to do something I've been talking about doing for a long time: shelve my books by the colours of the rainbow. This proved to be a much more difficult and time consuming task than I ever imagined! Book spines aren't just primary colours, they are all different shades of colours. I don't know how many times I asked my mom, "is this book yellow, brown, or beige?!"? Once all the books were back on the shelf, I realized that within the colours of the rainbow I could further organize them by their shade of colour, and as I started to do this, it seemed like an impossible task so I just let it be.

A few things I learned from this project: I have way more books with red spines and black spines than I  thought. I assumed white and blue would be the most abundant. Trade paper back books make it difficult to have a seamless flow of colours, another reason I love hard covers more.

I am in love with the final result. The lighting in this room makes it difficult to take good pictures and the effect is much more dramatic in person, but you get the idea. I often found myself in this room before me moved, staring at my bookshelves, mesmerized by the peacefulness they radiated. One day I may even go one step further and remove the dust jackets on my hardcovers for an even bolder look.

How do you organize your books at home? Use the hashtag #theshelfieproject on instagram if you want to show me your bookshelves! I'd love to see them.

Building Bookshelves Part II

Back in June I posted about my new bookshelves that I was so proud of - you can see that post here if you missed it - and how I was excited to finally unpack my many boxes of books that had patiently been waiting in storage for the past eight months. The boxes have been unpacked and the shelves are finally full, so I thought I would share some photos of my bookshelves with you! Seeing other people's bookshelves is one of my favourite things to do when I go over to someone's house. It's interesting to see what others like to read and what books they choose to keep and display on their shelves.

Here's a before picture:

Pre-books and pre-secured to wall

If I didn't have a husband, I probably would have left the shelves all uneven and a potential safety hazard like that. Good thing I do have a husband, because now the three pieces look more like one big piece.

My library in all it's glory!

I actually purged approximately 4 large boxes of books this time around. I used to keep everything I have ever read, but now I get rid of the books I didn't like and would therefore either never re-read or never lend to someone else to read. I also purged a lot of books that I've out grown - like all the Candace Bushnell books (sorry to any Candace Bushnell fans!).

Here's a close-up:

Right now, I've organized the books alphabetical by author, with all genres mixed together. I've always wanted to try this, but I find it hard to really customize my shelves this way. I like to organize the books based on their appearance or colour. Either way, I feel it's an evolving process and will continually change as I accumulate more books! I also, reluctantly, had to give the husband two shelves for his books (right side, fourth and fifth shelf from the top). He's not even a reader, yet he had almost enough (unread) books to fill two shelves!

Here's a few close-ups of my favourite shelves so far:

My beloved thrift store finds, including an old Fisher Price 'The Woman Who Lived in a Shoe' Shoe.

My collection of well-loved paper-backs that take me back to my young teen years.

My husband and I LOVE pirates and will pretty much buy any pirate book we ever come across!

How do you organize your books on your bookshelves? Do you have a system? Which books do you decide to keep, and which ones do you decide need to go?

Saigon Sundays: Building Bookshelves

I fell in love with our new house immediately because it has a small, open office/den space at the front of the house that I instantly knew I wanted to make into my library. I've always dreamed of having my own library but, one can not really have a library without bookshelves. And while I would love to have built-ins, it isn't in the budget right now. Luckily, IKEA makes some really nice, actual wood bookshelves. And as luck would have it, said bookshelves were on sale during the first week of May! Jim and I like to tackle things slowly, so it's no surprise that it took us 3 weeks to build the bookshelves. Also, our foreman wasn't the easiest guy to work with at times...

At one point we realized Saigon had left the room. I found him fast asleep upstairs on our bed!

All done! Just need to fill 'em now!