Progress is being made. We went to Ikea on Monday, as planned. I was actually very well behaved and only bought what we went for. I got the Billy Bookcases I needed, some shelving for the wardrobes that I'd had on my shopping list for ages. It hadn't been worth the drive previously to fetch just that so we'd been waiting for a trip over there for something else. I also picked up a spare set of bedding, which was on the list for a different store, but Ikea had a set that was exactly what I wanted but half the price I'd expected to pay. And, that was it. The restraint!
I'd altered the Billy shopping list slightly from two 80cm and a 40cm to three 80cm. No, the wall in the bedroom hasn't mysteriously stretched. But, in the living room, one wall had a combination of one 80cm, two 40cm, and two 20cm Benno CD racks.
(This photo was taken during the original renovations last year, which is why there are no books on the shelves and a ratty old rug protecting the floor.)
It occured to me that the CDs were taking up valuable book space. So, I moved one 40cm upstairs. The Benno CD towers went into the gym, which is where the CD player is anyway, so that makes more sense. That left a nice 80cm gap. For books!
It did make slightly more work, especially the taking the assembled bookcase up the stairs. Our house is quite compact. With lots of doors and tight corners. It was interesting. We got there in the end though.
All the bookcases are now assembled and downstairs is pretty much finished. One side of the room has the lovely smelly old books in the 40cm bookcase. The new 80cm has mostly classics – my definition of classics that is. There's Austen and Hardy mixed in with a book of fairy tales I was bought on the day I was born, plus some very old dictionarys and encyclopedias. That sort of thing. The other 80cm has books that I'm particularly fond of. Lord of the rings, obviously. Ken Grimwood's Replay & Iain Banks' The wasp factory. The Sparrow, I never promised you a rose garden, Pest control, etc. etc.
The other side of the room is mostly To Be Read. I thought I'd have plenty of room left on the 80cm but (cough cough) it appears to be pretty much full. How on earth did that happen? The 40cm does have quite a bit of room on it as that has just 90 or so 1001 books that are waiting to be read. The remaining 80cm bookcase has loads of space on it as it has all my Vampire, Werewolf and other supernatural books on it. I'm afraid I took that as an invitation to go shopping this morning and purchased a few books for it on Amazon. Plus one in Tesco. I might stick my head in The Works tomorrow as well. Problem is, they do have to fit on the TBR bookcase first…
But enough of downstairs. The exciting bit is the shiny new bookcase-covered wall upstairs. Just look at this!
Is there anything lovelier? 200cm of bookcase – just waiting to be filled. The hinges are on but the doors won't go on until the books are all arranged as it's easier to fill them that way. You'd think there'd be plenty of space, wouldn't you? I certainly did and I couldn't wait to put all my books on there. I started top left, alphabetically. I took the time to put any series in order too.
I began to realise that I may have a problem when I got to the top of the third bookcase and still had three shelves worth of Ks to put on. King, Koontz, Kurtz, Kerr, Kijewski. Hmmm. Yeah. I've got a lot of Ms too. McCaffrey, McDermid. And Ps. Pargetter, Pratchett, Peters.
Solution. I left the Ks and started at the end and worked backwards. That worked great for a while. Then it didn't.
I now have two shelves left and I still have to fit on K to P.
You know, I could really do with some more bookcases.