The Bookshelves

A while ago, and I’m not saying exactly when, the Christmas villages that my Mom put up for us were finally taken off of my shelves and boxed up and put away.

Which left them a bit, uh, empty and looking a bit uncared for, possibly dusty… Possibly.

That window seat is quite popular in our house; it’s almost everyone’s favorite place to sit. The good thing about it is that while you’re there taking in the view, watching the ships sailing past, you can’t actually see the shelves. Of course this means I was able to ignore them a bit longer than I should. We started filling the shelves up with random bits of things that couldn’t find their home, and I knew that unless I came up with something, they were bound to stay the catch-all place for little bits of junk that would drive me to distraction.

The thing is, I’m miserable at decorating. I’ve never had the knack for it like some people do. Although I’m comfortable creating color schemes and painting walls, it’s really hard work for me to pull objects together or even have a vision of where I want it all to go. I know when it’s not right or I don’t like it, but I’m not good at figuring out what I’d like better. If you’d ask me what my style is, I’d refer you to my friend Heather (Hi Heather!!), because I really don’t have any idea what it’s called. Maybe Too-Tired-To-Clean-Up-The-Legos Transitional? How about Post-Modernist Meets Dust-Bunny?

Here’s what I decided to do. Well, I say “decided” but really, this is a project that’s in progress… so maybe I should say “I’m deciding” since it’s all subject to change should I come up with a better idea. I know that I do not want something so busy that it detracts or competes with the view out the window. I don’t want it to be too littered with tchotckies, since I’m afraid that not only will it get too busy, but it will become a little-kids-with-curious-fingers magnet area. I think that I’d like to keep it simple and monochromatic, with bits of natural color and textural contrast thrown in here and there. I’d like to keep it calm and focused. I thought I could use some of the big (and small) glass containers I have lying around, as well as some of the stones we have from our local beaches (they’re beautiful… and free!) and see where that got me. With all that glass and all those rocks, I thought it might be nice to jump on the terrarium bandwagon as well.

So! All that thinking, and a little bit of gathering, now I have…

The left bookcase…

The right bookcase…

I have no idea what all the plants in the big terrarium (which used to be a pretty awesome fish bowl) are, but they looked pretty nice at one of our local garden shops. I hope they all get along now that they have to play so closely together. The plant/moss in the little jars are hyper local terrariums, directly gathered from my backyard.

I only have the bottom sections of the shelves done so they’re both still pretty empty, but at least it’s a start, right? I need to rearrange a few things, get some more rocks and natural materials to work with, but now I have some idea of how to move forward.

What do you think?

 

The Library :: A Little More Progress

Look!!

And specifically I mean “LOOK at the awesome painted walls! Pay no attention to the blasted mess left behind!” But hey, let’s keep it real, yo! This is what things look like around here mid project. Shove things off to one side, get in, get out, deal with the catastrophe and clean-up later.

I also managed to get the cords put up from the lights I installed on the little half wall.

Unfortunately, there is this problem I need to figure out…

That looks nice and inconspicuous, right? Just what I was going for… sigh.

And of course, there’s still the problem with the kids’ bookshelf.

Let’s take a closer look…

There are two very long sections here. The length makes it really difficult for our kids to keep their books upright, since all the books stacked back to back are quite heavy when they fall. Our oldest is six, meaning none of them really have the strength to move all those books around in one big pile, so we’re going to have add four dividers to help them out (two on the top shelf, two below). Of course, this isn’t going to be easy, since the boards that we will need cut aren’t at all square. I’m going to have to ask our local lumberyard shop to cut them for me, and I don’t know if they’ll do non-square cuts. We shall see! I also need to find the white trim paint that the contractor used… I really don’t want to have to repaint the entire bookshelf.

I’m not looking forward to getting this part done, but it really will help the kids keep their own books straightened up, so it must be done soon. Wish me luck!