Book Reorganization: The Saga Continues

/ Christine Pennylegion

I have a very exciting development to share with you in my book-reorganizing ordeal project:

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Floor space! The boyfriend came over on Saturday and helped me do a major part of the whole reorg — namely, getting dozens and dozens of books off my floor and back on shelves, all organized. We ended up doing three complete shelves’ worth, and I couldn’t have done it without him. The bookcase on which efforts were concentrated ended up looking like this:

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The top row there is mostly classics, along with literary criticism/writing aids, some small books, and A. S. Byatt. The second shelf is Canadiana, poetry, and drama. The third shelf is holding drama (continued), biography/memoir, and theology/general Christianity (including fiction).

The very bottom-most shelf was also tackled, while the one above it remains a giant mess:

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Yup… giant mess. But everything below it is sorted, labelled, organized, and even shelved categorically: yearbooks, personal records, correspondence, essays and tests, class notes, and the like. Everything is in its place at last. And I’m also getting rid of a whole bunch of excess paper. You might not think so to look at it, but my recycle bin now weighs ten pounds:

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Three different methods were used above to make the double-decker shelves (a new system for me that I highly recommend; it’s a super-efficient way to hold books, and if your props are high enough you’ll be able to see the titles of the books behind just fine). Method one is old cereal boxes reinforced with sturdy cardboard on the inside:

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Number two is a plastic yellow bin that was part of an ancient kids’ chalkboard we have still lying around. It was meant to store chalk but it also makes an excellent book prop:

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And the last was simply using other books — in this case a perfectly-sized set of New Testament commentaries. They get used, but not that often, and so I appropriated them:

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There’s an awful lot still to be done. I need to shelve mystery, fantasy, children’s books,science fiction, and general non-fiction — and all the rest, which I think I will just shove into a “general literature” category. One full bookcase is still to go, plus various bits and bobs here and there:

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But in the end, between purging and just organizing better, I think I might actually be able to pare down from four bookcases to three. It’s crazy!

Anyone else doing spring cleaning?

9 thoughts on “Book Reorganization: The Saga Continues”

  2. I love the double-shelving, book-propping-up idea! Would save a lot of space for me, especially since I'm living in a college dorm…I still can't get my mind wrapped around the idea of purging books, though… it just makes me sad to even think about getting rid of them.

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  3. The purging was okay because I wasn't getting rid of any books that were my friends. I managed to prune about 80 that either I hadn't read and wouldn't want to, or that I had read but wouldn't again. It's not sad to get rid of things you don't love.

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  5. I love the new colors for your blog! Puts me in the mood for spring.I'm doing a bit of organization right now as well. The problem that I have is that I get distracted by books when I should be organizing them. Very hard not to peek into the ones I haven't read yet!I love your method of double-stacking. I'm definitely going to implement it with my own shelves. I think I have the same bookcases in a different color.I have a lot of ARC's that I need to set aside for giveaways. That's going to open up a lot of desperately needed shelf space!Ruth @ Bookish Ruth’s latest blog post:Guest Blogger: Don Bruns, Author of Bahama Burnout

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