Before we bought this house I visited a neighbor whose home is a model of uncluttered lovelieness. I sat in her knick-knack free living room and marveled at how CLEAN everything looked, vowing to come home and get rid of all the crap that I have EVERYWHERE. Then, of course I got home and realized that I couldn't possibly live in a house without all my crap. Because I love my crap. Especially my books.
The first two houses we lived in were adorable little Potland Bungalows with built in bookshelves and china cabinets that I filled with my collection of old (and new) books. And I've never really gotten over those two houses. I spent hours wandering the asiles of Powells Books adding to my shelves (this is before children of course, who has time to spend
hours doing ANYTHING once you have children, let alone wander a giant bookstore in peace. Ahhh Powells...) And the only time I got rid of a book,even a book I didn't particularly like, was to sell it in order to buy another book.Every place we have lived since has dissapointed me on the shelving front. I've moaned about the lack of bookshelves, groaned about not having all my books out where I could see them, grumbled over the temporary shelves we've been forced to use. So one of the things I really wanted in this house was a whole wall of bookshelves and my darling husband has been workign over the past
few weeks to give me just that. Remember that IKEA trip we took, where our car looked like it was going to explode cardboard? Well, that overloaded car was full almost entirely of bookselves, and after some assembling, trimming out and color codeing (yes, I color code my books, I'm weird, but it means I can find what I'm looking for every time, unless, say, someone takes the dust cover off of your Harry Potter book so that instead of being tucked away in the reds it's found it's way into the blacks so that you cant find it when you PROMISED the neighbor she could borrow it...) I have my very own happy wall.
I think this is the first time in five or six years that all my books are out of boxes. And to be honest, I think there may be more somewhere int he basement still to be uncovered. But the bulk of the books are out, which tickles me pink. Now I wonder if I could talk him into building me a whole library...