Books, Books, and more Books

Over the years I have amassed quite a collection of books.  Cookbooks, party planning books, home renovation books, landscaping books, novels - you name it.  I found myself with too many books and not enough space for them all.

A few years ago, I bought these bookcases at IKEA.  They have served, and continue to serve their purpose quite well.  But alas, they have reached their capacity.  Last weekend, while walking through the Marketplace at IKEA, I stumbled upon a room set up with these cabinets but with height extenders on top.  Needless to say this was a "quick intake of breath" moment.  Not more than 30 minutes later I was in Aisle 1, bin 67 filling my cart with all the necessary parts for these extenders.

This morning I have committed to assembling these extenders and getting them in place.

Before Height Extenders

I was never really happy with these wicker baskets sitting on top of the bookcases.  They were helpful for storage, but not very pretty.  But, you do what you do until you can do better.  And today, we have done better.

And After

What a nice clean, uncluttered look.  The wicker baskets will still serve as storage bins, just in a different way and in a different place.  I'm thinking they need to be a different color too.  Maybe brown. Maybe gray.  Maybe some brown and some gray.  We will talk about that later.

All things considered, I'm glad I installed the extenders.  I now have a nice clean look and as you can see it offers plenty of extra storage for books and other "tools of the trade."

During this project I found some books from my childhood.  Here is a Whitman cloth book with a copyright of 1959, the year I was born.

And a Random House Mother Goose book that I received January 24, 1964.

Mother Goose Cover

Mother Goose Inside Front Cover

A productive day!