Bren asked today if we could take pictures of how we store books in our home and share them on our blog. My methods are a mess and on shelves that are not fancy, but they do the trick...hold the books. I'm hoping showing my messiness here will be the motive I need to clean it up!

The first shot isn't a bookcase. It's a table in my bedroom. Not pretty, but since I don't have a shelf in my bedroom and I read at night, I keep books on my side of the bed. This table catches the mess. I have been thinking about getting a small oak bookshelf for the bedroom. Looks like it is time!!

The next location is in my living room. I don't keep a lot of books there...just a few. Those are on the bottom 2 shelves. The top shelves have a couple of DD's porcelain dolls and some clear glass items that belonged to my great grandmother.
OK...now we are to my sewing room and the bookcase I have there. This is where I keep my sewing, quilting and a few miscellaneous books. It is difficult to take a picture because it sits in a little recess right by the door that would otherwise be unusable. It's about 14 inches wide and 50 inches tall. It will actually fold flat, so it is easy to move around. I bought this at Bed, Bath & Beyond several years ago. I know they still carry them but in dark wood. Target also has them. They are also available about 2 ft. wide and 50 inches tall. DD has several that size from her college days.

Now we are moving into shared territory. The next shelf is in our unfinished basement. DH bought it from a company that was going out of business. It is metal and very sturdy. Not pretty, but it doesn't have to be since it is down there. I thought it was filled with DH's engineering books, but I was wrong. I see a couple of my Norton Anthology books there, some other college books and some old books MIL gave us. There's some kiddie books there too. Notice the Dutch Oven on the top shelf. Every bookshelf should have one of those!!


This last photo is ALL DH's books. The shelf is again one he bought from the failed business. You can see my DH wouldn't qualify for the "Mr. Neatness" award either. If you enlarge the photo and notice the brown bottle....it isn't a beer bottle. It's a sarsaparilla bottle that one of my kids got when we visited the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View AR. I still have a few of those keepsakes from their childhood. I think this was one DS would never let me throw away.

Bren showed an Aunt Martha's quilt book she has. I wrote and told her I had the same one plus a few others. These were books my mother had when I was growing up at home.



Guess I will be busy tomorrow doing a little housecleaning! I hope someone else will show us some of their book storage without doing a major cleanup first. Sure would make me feel better to know I'm not the only one that needs to work on cleaning!