My Bookshelf Situation

"Just because it's free doesn't mean you have to take it," John told me several years ago.  Wise words indeed.  When we were first married and setting up shop, I would take any furniture that was free and make it work in our house.  With those gentle and kind words, John saved us from a life of hoarding and a house full of furniture that doesn't work for us.  Now, I'm getting picky about what I furniture I want.  I need highly functional furniture.

With baby #2 on the way, we had to break down our office to give her a room.  That meant that we had to relocate our bookshelves, the computer, our filing system, and John's space to call his own.  

First up: the bookshelves.  We had three of these great shelves from Ikea that held books, magazines, pictures, and other fun stuff like bookmarks and a letter box.  When we had to move them out of her room, we didn't have any tall wall space to put our bookshelves.  

I knew that I wanted to put some bookshelves against the half wall in our living room.  I couldn't find bookshelves that fit the dimensions, so I asked my brother to make me one.  That was the plan until John suggested cutting our original shelves to fit the wall.  I thought that was niftier than two-shirt pockets.  He measured to make sure they would fit and just like that we went with  Plan C.  

One Saturday, John asked me if I was sure that I wanted to do this.  I gave him the go ahead and he started cutting.  No turning back.  Please note Burl.  John saws, Burl saws.

And just like that, we went from this against our half wall:

to this:

We decided that we like it.  John says that it looks like we have "life" in the living room.  And we like life a lot.  To squeeze everything into those shorter shelves, I paired down my book collection.  It's hard for this girl who used to work at a bookstore and loves all things paper to finally decide she doesn't need to keep every book.  I'm ok now though, thanks for asking.  I've got a big box of books that's going to make me some money at the local used bookstore.  

And I have bookshelves that perfectly fit my little half wall.