Library

As anyone who knows me can tell you, I collect my share of books, and everybody else’s ration as well. So when we talk about the library, we really mean a huge room full of books. Shawn and I are both collectors and we both reread and collect new books. Fon’t get me wrong, we also have hundreds of ebooks. They are cheaper and don’t take up as much room, so collecting those makes sense, but our 5-10,000 favorites, we have in hardcover and paperbacks.

When my friend Jack volunteered to paint the basement, he knew it was going to be the library. So as the first two coats of paint wait for the final coat and details, I have started thinking about shelves. I am really a fan of the brick and board kind. They are cheap, re-arrangable, matching and it has the added benefit of being adaptable to fit our needs rather than ten different bookcases, each with different shelf positions, different colors, different capacities, and different weight limits. We are looking at different options, ones that can prevent double stacking, so we are looking at nothing bigger than 6 inch boards and Shawn will anchor them to the wall. I think decorative blocks or painted cinder blocks would work.

Once we unload all the books I will know if we have room for a creative shelf, something that looks like a tree for favorite volumes from Shawns collection and mine. Or maybe for my books… It will depend on the room available. It has been more than 20 years since all our books were in one place. That will take some time… Not until spring before we start unloading the storage locker.

Anyway our colors are a bright blue and Stonehenge gray. It is looking pretty nice already. If you have an idea for cheap but interesting shelves, please share it!