Thursday, February 20, 2014

Our Home Library

Looks OK from that side...

Not terrible on that side either (save for the drying rack). Yes, that is a "penguin on the telly."   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k1ccguXiwsI hope he doesn't explode.

 This is where I make a confession of sorts, like giving you a glimpse into my dark secrets (if I had any) or the knowledge that my underwear is held together with safety pins. This is the second room of the library...
Oh dear. We moved here in July, and I had every intention of getting these books sorted, and into taller bookshelves. Wait, it gets worse...
Obviously, I can't find anything in those stacks (the books I need for homeschooling were carefully set aside when I packed. Thank god I had enough sense to do that). You can get through there, there's a walkway, and the paths are clear, it just isn't even close to being organised in a useful way.
 I know where the cookery books are, so that's a start. I keep them next to the pantry (obvious).
 I'm afraid the situation isn't much better upstairs, though the bulk of the books are all downstairs now.

Our small bookcases formed a double sided nook in the last house, but it won't work with the layout here. The plan is floor to ceiling bookcases in the second half of the basement, but I'm getting impatient. I don't want to buy inferior bookcases that aren't intended to hold books (books are heavy, you know?) so I may need to wait a bit longer for what I want. I have found it easier to send the kid looking for books in the stacks as he's smaller, has better eyesight, and a knack for identifying books by shape.
Chaos, but the somewhat organised variety. Everything else is neatly unpacked and dealt with, it is just this one room...and it is driving me out of my haus frau head. I like things in their place. This is...not. I don't even have a "junk drawer" for fuck's sake.

Let's see how the plants are overwintering in the sunny window, that will take my mind off the books.
Danny's terrarium is doing well. I'm afraid the parsley plant behind it is dead.
The Admiral looks good, though he has yet to bloom, or bear fruit.  I use the lime leaves in curries though, and to bake fish. It needs a serious pruning.
Apollo II is doing well. The first laurel tree (Apollo I) bit the dust, so I replaced him at the Lancaster County plant sale last spring. So far, so good.
 

You would think having all this sunshine pouring into our downstairs room would encourage me to spend a bit of time getting the books better sorted. I love having a walk-out basement, and the space for laundry, a pantry, and plants is terrific. I just can't deal with the other room. Like a teenager's bedroom, I close the dividing door and pretend it does not exist, except it does. Perhaps if I put it in writing here, I will feel obligated to deal with it, so here goes-Spring break, I will organise the second room of the library.

All right you guys, hold me to it!

4 comments:

Witchcrafted Life said...

Wow, the next time my darling husband (and fellow devoted bookworm, don't get me wrong) says that we have a lot of books crammed into our modest sized abode (which we do in the two rooms where most of them reside), I'm going to point him towards this post. You guys really have a decent sized library on your hands. I hope that one day our numbers (of books) will swell to such ranks as well. Tony just gave me three new books for Valentine's Day, so that's further help in that direction for sure.

Best of luck with your organizing - I'm hoping to do some of my own this weekend in our basement.

♥ Jessica

*PS* Thank you very much for your wonderfully nice comment on yesterday's post. I don't have children of my own yet, but from day one, I've always felt that way, too, in regards to if we ever do (ditto for my scrapbooking).

Goody said...

I blame the local Friends of the Library book sale every Thursday. At .25-$1.50 a book, there's too much temptation! I did not do a sensible thing, moving down the street from the place.

The sale began with books being replaced in the library system, but now they take donations as well, and there's a steady stream of interesting stuff.

I'm curious to see what you come up with for sorting your stuff out. I hope you share it when you do.

Curtise said...

That's a LOT of books! But what a fabulous resource. Yes, I will be holding you to your aim of sorting that second library (you're very lucky to have one library, let alone two!) xxx

Goody said...

We'd lived at our last place 12 years, and I hadn't noticed just how large the collection was getting until I had to pack it all last summer.

Yes, this spring it will all be dealt with!