Books and book storage

Paula has been rearranging and modifying her bookshelves, and it got me thinking about book storage. Once I had a wall of bookshelves in my den when I lived in Knoxville, Tn. My father-in-law built them for us after we moved, and it seemed like we could never fill that many shelves. Of course, we did. When we moved, there was nowhere for the books to go, so they spent two years in boxes in the basement of our new house.

Before we moved again, we thinned out the boxes and sold a huge number of unwanted books at the local used book store. After the next move (into an apartment while we hunted for a house), most of the remaining books were stored in my mother's garage, where they sat for seventeen years. Needless to say, I no longer remembered what books we had, or even missed them much. When I was home last June, we sorted through them and gave most to the library. The only books left in storage there are two boxes of those belonging to my husband, which I couldn't get rid of without consulting him.

While all those books were in storage, we were of course collecting more. I don't have a one single place to store books now; they're all over the house. Luckily, this house had a bookcase built in by the chimney in the den, as well as the bookcase that matches my desk. We have two barrister bookcases that my father-in-law built for us, and an old stacking bookcase we bought from Yield House thirty years ago. When I redid the kitchen I made sure there was a glass-doored cabinet for cookbooks (at least the ones I use regularly).

So books are everywhere.
In the den:
In the guest room:
In the kitchen: And dining room: In the spare bedroom (aka computer room):And usually on a lot of side tables and nightstands. Having something to read is a constant in my life, and I try now to keep the book I have finished purged and donated to the library, unless they are special. They could very easily take over the entire house.