Thursday, May 2, 2013

Bookcase Remodel


 


 My mom and my husband are book lovers. Mom especially had a rather large collection. When my husband and I moved into her house, now our house, the basement became our refuge. Sadly it was time for Mom to donate much of her collection. She admitted she will never read 80% of the collection and she was just hoarding them. St Vincent schedules multiple donation pick-ups through out the year and they gladly accepted the books.


This was taken the summer of 2006.





















The goal is to keep a minimum of books and make room for future collections. Start by removing everything off the shelves. Create 3 piles: Keep, Donate, Maybe. Box up the donation pile and remove from the room. You do not need the distract or temptation to rummage. Go back to your maybe pile and commit to adding 1/4 to the keep pile. Then maybe pile is now your donation pile.

Now you have to decide how you want to display your keep pile. You can group by colors, authors, genera etc. We did a little of both.

Since your shelves are empty, now is the time to clean and possible paint. Don't forget to dust the books. I decided to add a light blue to the back wall. Later I discovered it didn't pop in this dark area of the house. No worries since your pile is at least 1/4 the size it was before you started. You can always remove the books and paint at a later time.


Finally you can add your decorative touches, display some photos or colored jars.

Organization and cleaning doesn't end there. You are going to add to your collection, put random stuff bare spots, change your theme etc. But now you have the skills to do it over again and again.

That's what I did the Spring of 2013. Our son is now 4 and eventually he will wonder just what we hide in that corner bar. Time to store the alcohol higher and out of reach.






















This time I hoarded craft supplies and magazines. Occasionally we would place something out of reach from our son and forget about it like the camera.






Pinterest, I just love that site. Ok maybe I spend a little too much time surfing different boards but when I saw this photo below, I just knew how to transform this bookcase.


Source: http://ciaonewportbeach.blogspot.com/2012/05/bookcase-styling.html

















Perfect way to show off your alcohol with a scheme....Rainbow. I just happened to have a 2 year collection of colored jars waiting for a new home. We even had colored spines for the first shelf of books.











You may also like:

http://mbella77.blogspot.com/2013/02/stockpile-organization.htmlhttp://mbella77.blogspot.com/2012/12/christmas-storage.htmlhttp://mbella77.blogspot.com/2013/12/refrigerator-organization.html





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