Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Bookshelves = Happiness

I have dreamed of bookshelves for many years. I have had little shelves here and there, but I wanted a library, a one-stop-shop for my bound and beautiful little friends. Last January (after not getting bookshelves from Santa AGAIN) I bought some shelves from Office Max. They are called 'mission' shelves, which means they aren't solid, but made up of strips of wood. But they were affordable for me so I bought them. I thought they would fit all the books that had been hiding in boxes for years and years. They didn't. I thought they would be taller, they weren't. I did not expect them to have a static charge that made them nearly impossible to dust--they did.

But they were bookshelves and they looked nice and I was happy. However, I am still a mere mortal so I wanted MORE. About four months ago I was as my mom's and she had an IKEA catalog. IKEA had just come to Salt Lake and I was rolling my eyes at the big deal everyone was making over it. It's furniture in a box, for heaven's sake, how good can it be? And yet, I honed in on some bookshelves and felt myself drooling. They were simple, yet tall, and almost affordable.

Since then I have plotted and planned and finally last Tuesday I made the trek to IKEA and bought my shelves! I also ate the meatballs--YUM. I got home and went to work, only to realize I had not calculated well, so I had to go back on Friday. My family nearly sold me on eBay for being such an obsessive freak as I put these together (You want dinner AGAIN--I did that last night!) and it took me days to get my study arranged the way I wanted it and figure out what to do with the furniture I already had. I put one set together with one backward, which meant I had to take it apart and they are far easier to put together than they are to take apart. I ended up making huge gouges in the wood and taking five years off my life, but a little sharpie marker made it all but disappear.

And now, I have my library! It fits all my books, scrapbooks, paper and knickknacks with room to spare! It even looks nice for now, without any toys or dust to mar it's loveliness. I love it, love it, love it, and my family loves me again.










I wonder what other people have done with their books? Are you still in the closet/box phase as I was last year? Have you already established one in your home? Or do you think it's a silly waste of time when there are so many shoes you could buy instead?

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12 comments:

Rebecca Talley said...

Love your shelves!

When we reorganized our house, we turned our original dining room into a study/computer room. I had fantasized that we'd have shelves for our books, but since we didn't, we turned our original living room into a library. In the study, though, we purchased cupboards, drawers, and the like for office type supplies/genealogy/printer and computer supplies etc.) from Home Depot and had to assemble them. What a big, fat pain! I'm sure I, like you, took 5 years off my life, gouged holes in the walls (the cupboards hid them), and didn't do anything domestic until everything was assembled and put into the room. We did learn our lesson, though, and built the library shelves ourselves from scratch and they turned out very nice. The library is my favorite room in the house.

I'm glad you finally got your shelves!

Lisa said...

Hooray for shelves! We are bookshelve people. My children have way more books than I do and they have shelves, too. We bought the youngest's shelves from IKEA, too. :)

When we bought this house, I inherited a built in office. We moved the built in office so we could have a guest room, and had it altered. I love it. It holds all my books and all the rest. But I always tell the kids, no more books! They don't listen too well.

We call the teen's room "the library".

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

I just broke a commandment. I'm coveting your shelves. I've long dreamed of a similar set up. ~sigh~

Karlene said...

Looks great. I am so jealous.

An Ordinary Mom said...

Gorgeous, positively gorgeous!

I am glad you have come around and discovered the greatness in Ikea. Hopefully you know all about Costco already.

Our family is in the box and bookshelf phase. We have a large, solid oak double bookshelf from Costco we got when we first got married over 9 years ago, but we have really outgrown it. Maybe when DH is done with school and we have an income and a house we can get another one.

Tamra Norton said...

I'm in a state of total bookshelf envy. Yeah, I have some shelves, but not enough, and not nearly as beautiful. LOVE the dark wood!

Hmmmm...maybe I need to check out our local IKEA.

Tristi Pinkston said...

They are beeeyooootiful!! Someday I'm going to have a wall big enough to put some shelves on. :)

Karen E. Hoover said...

Niiiiice. A big Woo-hoo for you, Josi. Those shelves are gorgeous. Even I'm a teensy bit jealous and I've got plenty of my own! lol

Luisa Perkins said...

It looks great! Congratulations!

I always knew IKEA would be a hit in SLC; we shopped at the NJ store for our very first furniture 17 years ago. Those IKEA shelves we got then served us very well for many years; just last year, we put in built-ins and passed the IKEA ones on to friends.

Anna Maria Junus said...

I love shelves. They hold so much and take up so little space.

Jenna said...

They look great! I would love shelves like these. I have bookshelves in almost every room. I have thousands of books, literally, so my dream is to one day have a room I can call the Library, to house them all.

Autumn Ables said...

Awesome! Ilovewhat you found and made it look the way you want...with out the cost. Nice going!