Check Out Other People's Books

Anne over at the wonderful and very thought provoking blog Modern Mrs Darcy is doing a great link up today.

You get to check out other people's bookshelves...and there are no worries that you will look nosey when doing it!

I'll be honest. I always like to see what other people liked reading enough that they put it on their bookshelf. I often get some great suggestions on what I should pick up as my next book. Plus you learn a lot about the other person!

Be sure to check out the other participants by clicking here.

I am sharing this post...an oldy but goody.


I needed to organize my bookshelves.

I do not have a before picture to show you, but let's just say it looked something like this...

 

Via

 



And here is the after...

These bookshelves have been around through four moves and three paint jobs. A couple of the shelves have footprints in the paint from where my then toddler son ran across them, while they were drying on the floor, during one of the repaints. Needless to say these bookshelves and I have been through a lot together, and I love that now the shelves are cleared and organized. It really shows my books off to their best advantages. I also now have the room to add a few extra decorative items to the shelves.

First thing I did was pare down the books to only the ones I truly could not part with. This was so hard to do! It was a bit like having to say good bye to old, dear friends. I kept stopping to read them.

I looked something like this....

The Bookworm by Carl Spitzweg

 

Finally, I had two boxes full of books, and I carted them off to donate to the local Friends of the Library Book Sale.

 

I decided to organize the books roughly by subject. This has really helped me be able to quickly find what I am looking for.

 

 

 

I placed some of the books at different angles to add interest to the shelves.

 

 

My mother gave me this pillow, and it is one of my favorite things.  The glass vase was hand blown at a glass factory near my hometown.

 

 

The organized bookshelves were such an improvement to my living room, that I went to work on the bookshelf in my children's room. 

 

 

 

We mainly group the books here by subject, author or reading level.

 

 

 

Now that our bookshelves look so great, I declared a ban in our house...no more buying books just to be buying books. As a result, I have to really like the book for me to purchase it and put it on my bookshelf. We almost exclusively get all of our books from the public library now. I would love to see the data of which family checks out the most books at our library. I think we would win.

How do you organize your books, and how do you decide which make the cut to put on the shelves?

Improve the House: Boy's Room

I am slowly working on the List I talked about here.

First up was my boy's bedroom. The plan for this room was:

Boy's Room
-Clean up closet
-Tidy desk
-Identify out-grown clothing

I started with talking my boys into putting on the clothes that I had saved from last year, to see if they could still squeeze into them. They responded to this with about as much enthusiasm  as if I declared I was redecorating their room with flower patterned curtains. I tried to tell them that we were having a fashion show, but being boys, this didn't interest them. Finally, I just gave up and bribed them with the chance to watch their favorite movie on DVD if they would give me a half hour of their time to try on clothes. This worked...bad bribing mommy!

Most of the clothes didn't fit them, and I wondered once again why I keep so many each year.

Where I am from we would call these pants High Waters.

I made a pile of clothes that no longer fit. I will donate these to a local store run by a service organization.

The summer clothes that I decided to keep were put in a bin to store in their closet.

I then released the boys from this clothes-trying-on-drudgery,  and they went off to watch their movie. I took advantage of the 92 minutes of quiet, and really set to work on getting their room back in shape.

The only thing that could be described as big in our small 1920's house (great charm, great location!) is my boy's closet. At the moment though, their stuffed animals had apparently exploded inside it.

After a quick tidying up, I could see the floor again.

Oh...such happiness!

I took all the bulky clothes out of their drawers and hung them in the closet.

The drawers were then nicely arranged. I had to take a picture because this is the last time they  will look like this.

Next up was tackling the desk. It quickly went from this....

....to this. My older son now has a place to do his homework.

I can now check the boy's room off the list.

Check out the Link Up to I Heart Organizing.

Revel the After Photos: Bookshelves

In yesterday's post, I talked about the large amount of books I had and my need for organized bookshelves.

I do not have a before picture to show you, but let's just say it looked something like this...

 

Via

 



And here is the after...

These bookshelves have been around through four moves and three paint jobs. I couple of the shelves have footprints in the paint from where my then toddler son ran across them while they were drying on the floor during one of the repaints. Needless to say these bookshelves and I have been through a lot together, and I love that now the shelves are cleared and organized. It really shows my books off to their best advantages. I also now have the room to add a few extra decorative items to the shelves.

First thing I did was pare down the books to only the ones I truly could not part with. This was so hard to do! It was a bit like having to say good bye to old, dear friends. I kept stopping to read them.

I looked something like this....

The Bookworm by Carl Spitzweg

 

Finally, I had two boxes full of books, and I carted them off to donate to the local Friends of the Library Book Sale.

 

I decided to organize the books roughly by subject. This has really helped me be able to quickly find what I am looking for.

 

 

 

I placed some of the books at different angles to add interest to the shelves.

 

 

My mother gave me this pillow, and it is one of my favorite things.  The glass vase was hand blown at a glass factory near my hometown.

 

 

The organized bookshelves were such an improvement to my living room, that I went to work on the bookshelf in my children's room. 

 

 

 

We mainly group the books here by subject, author or reading level.

 

 

 

Now that our bookshelves look so great, I declared a ban in our house...no more buying books. We almost exclusively get all of our books from the public library now. I would love to see the data of which family checks out the most books at our library. I think we would win.

Check out the link up at Serenity Now,  Calling It Home, I Heart Organizing, Tatertots and Jello,  Not Just a Housewife, The Pink Pagoda, Remodelaholic, A Bowl Full of Lemons
 



Reveal the After Photos: Boy's Bedroom

I am very excited to share the "after" photos of my boy's bedroom.

.

 

 

The chevron rug that I talked about in yesterday's post, definitely was a good addition to the space. Once I saw it in person, it took me a little bit of time to get use to all that zig zag movement in the rug. Of course, it is mostly covered with toys now anyway, so it doesn't bother me as much.



 



 

 











 This was the dresser that I already had, and matched with the wood finish of the bunk bed. The pictures above show off my two boy's different personalities.

 

 

 

 

 

The boys love to collect maps from the different places they have been. We have maps from zoos, amusement parks, museums, and even of our hometown that cover one wall of the room.

 

 

I hope you enjoy seeing the room, and might find some of your own inspiration for improvements.



Find Decorating Inspiration for My Boy's Bedroom

 

When we moved to our new house, my boys begged to share a room. It quickly became a lesson in compromise.

 

I am not a natural decorator, but I am good at finding inspiration, and then modifying it to my own tastes. After a lot of researching on my part, I found this picture.

 



HGTV



 

I loved the colors in the duvet cover, and quickly started to plan the room with this inspiration in mind. My boys on the other hand had other ideas. They took one look and said, "No." Back to the drawing board for me.

 

Then I found this picture.

 

She Knows

 

 

One son's favorite color is yellow and the other's is red. Also, I wanted to use a dresser we already had that had the same wood finish as the furniture here. I liked how those colors looked together in this picture.

 

 

This time they took one look and said, "Yes". Score one for me.

 

I also came across the pictures for this room and fell in love with the brown and white chevron rug. I had to have one for the boy's bedroom.



 

HGTV

 

 

Now that I had the inspiration I needed, I worked up a plan.

 

For the paint color on the walls, I went with my favorite yellow. Benjamin Moore's Hawthorne Yellow.

 

Then I just needed a Brown and White Chevron Rug, bunk beds, and bookshelves.

 

I'll share the finished room tomorrow....