Library! AKA - controlled chaos...

This weekend, we finally (mostly) finished the library. Our original plan was to use expedit shelves from IKEA. I was on board with that for a while, but truthfully, I had always envisioned adjustable shelves. I wanted to be sure I had a place my globe collection would fit! Josh needed a desk area as well, since he is in school, and since the long wall by the closet had a good depth to it, I thought we should just get a deeper shelf on the bottom to use as a desk. Otherwise, all four walls would be spoken for, and since it's a tiny room I wanted to have as much free space as possible, visually and otherwise.

Saturday morning we headed to Home Depot to get our materials. Unfortunately, we got the wrong stuff. We got the single track stuff. Once we finished the first wall, and put up some shelves, we quickly realized that it was not stable or sturdy enough to support a desk and the weight of books.

This thumbs-up was given too soon.

We removed it all and drove back to Home Depot to exchange everything. Even though the receipt for the stuff we had bought earlier flew away on the wind, we had no problems returning it. I am finding I love Home Depot more than Lowe's more and more every day.

Unfortunately, the holes for the new tracking did not line up with the holes for the old tracking. This meant we had to drill almost double the amount of holes that we already had in that wall. Some of the holes are alarmingly close together.

At least the new tracking was wide enough to cover it up!

And all that drilling made a big mess...

Finally, though, we got into a groove and made progress.

Though it was a little uncomfortable for Bip at the end...

It took a lot longer than we planned. It was Sunday afternoon before we completed installing all the shelves and organizing books into categories.
The Bip is thrilled with his new desk area. It's only about 16" deep, but it's 68" long, so it's still plenty of space. We moved the sexy chairs that were in the living room in here until we figure out where to put them.

My books are thrilled to have a place to call home instead of being piled up on the floor.

I think my globes are happy, too.

(We have since put our bedroom tv on these shelves, too. I didn't take a pic of it yet, though.)

Sadly, the wall in the above picture needs a little more work. There is not much on it at the moment, at least not in the middle, because we're going to need to put another strip and more brackets in the middle, otherwise it sags a bit. Books are heavy, so we can't take any chances. Also, I didn't plan to run the shelving all the way up on this wall, but we're going to have to, because we have so many books! 90% of them are mine, but Josh has definitely contributed, and will continue to. We're big readers.

I donated about 150 books to Goodwill in May, and it's definitely time to do another purge. I try to get rid of most of my fiction after I read it, but it's piling up a bit again already.

Also, now that this room is mostly* done, I finally have a place to put my gumball machine! My dad got this for me 5 or so years ago at an auction. Whoever had it before me filled it with Happy Meal toys. I just think it's a fun thing to have, it makes me smile! Some of the toys are old - Pac Man and Mr. T!

* I say the room is 'mostly' done, because there is still more to do. Add some more decor, hopefully a big comfy chair, stablize and add more shelving on the third wall, and paint the trim. But, the major parts of it are done, and we love it. We find ourselves popping in there for no reason just to look around and admire it all.

We managed to accomplish a few other things this weekend, too, but not as much as I had hoped. Projects take time and money, and neither of those things are as readily available as we'd like (especially time!! We worked up until about 9pm Sunday on this room and other things in the house). Hopefully we will get more accomplished after the wedding (we still have not printed or sent out invites - yikes!) and through the fall and winter. Next spring I think it's time to tackle the outside - adding to our garden, landscaping the front, painting the trim and front door, etc.

We definitely have enough stuff lined up to keep us busy for the next few years. But I think we're (almost!) at a point where we can relax for a bit and admire what we have accomplished. But I'm always thinking about what I want to get done next... that's just how my brain works.