Tuesday 10 May 2011

Project: Complete!!

So, a month or two ago I bought a new bookshelf as my old one had run out of room for new books, even with books stacked on top of each other. I was also afraid there'd be a Flat Stanley moment when I woke up with it on top of me one day, seeing as it was a cheapie and was tilting at a very precarious angle.

So off to Ikea I trotted to buy a different type of cheap bookshelf, one that I thought would be able to hold a lot more books. As it turns out, it only just fits all of my books (probably shouldn't have bought a heap of books the day I bought the shelf).

There was a slight hitch in the assembly process, as one of the pieces was damaged when I got it out of the flatpack cardboard, but the Ikea people were lovely and arranged to send me a replacement piece.

When I finally put it together, with all the books it looked like this:

Before

Books everywhere, no co-ordination. I'd been meaning to do something with it, but really couldn't be bothered.

That is, until last night.

Insomnia's a terrible thing, but every now and then, sometimes it makes me incredibly productive. I decided to finally organise my preciouses.


During

Above you can see the piles of books being sorted. So much effort. I almost wanted to give up then, but I persevered, and in a lot less time than I thought it would take, I ended up with this:

Ta-daaaaah!

Colour co-ordinated books!!

Now, I know many people would hate the idea of separating books from the one series, but I'm not too bothered by that. The bottom two right cubes of the shelf are just textbooks that I didn't want to incorporate into the colour scheme. The books are ridiculously heavy and I wanted to keep them on the lower shelf, lest this cheapie end up on a scary tilt like my last one.

Now, looking at my books like this, I realise I need to be branching out in my literary pursuits: less white and yellow, more blue and purple.


Sorry about the blurriness of the photos. I must learn how to actually use that silly camera.

But I do love the effect. I'm just worried though because the shelves are completely full, and I know there's a bunch of books I own floating about amongst my friends, and a bunch on their way from Book Depository.


3 comments:

Kylie Purtell said...

I love it! I don't think I could colour co-ordinate my books (I'm too anal when it comes to alphabetising and genre, yes I worked in a bookstore for many years!), but yours look fabulous! FABULOUS!

Sarah said...

Thank you, Kylez!! I think if it was a different type of bookshelf I'd have had to alpha the books, but this one almost screamed to be colour blocked. Being in my room feels so nice now :)

Kylie Purtell said...

I definitely think the cube bookshelf lends itself to colour co-ordinating.

I am thinking I might have to do something like that with a kids bookshelf now that I have started accumulating more kids books.