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As I have logged writings onto my blog here in the organizational category, today we get to move up one level onto the main floor of the home.
This is a special room to me, a favorite to most who visit us also. Imagine nine-foot ceilings, and all wall space filled with shelves spilling over with books, for a feast to any book lover’s eyes! This is the room where biblio-nuts tend to gather, relax, and curl up with a beloved book, something valued as a good read any hour of the day, easily sufficing for a bookworm's den. Truly, the room offers a euphoric splendor for any book lover, and I’m slowly converting most of my friends over to earn the same title.
"No man can be called friendless when he has
God and the companionship of good books."
~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
I am very uncertain when the book virus hit my brain, truly it’s become difficult to fathom the thought of not knowing the "Aha" moment when the love of books initially arrived.
our many out of print lovelies.
I remember when I was seven and was able to tag along with my cousins while on a summer vacation in
I recall adoring the opening of our elementary grade school’s library and the designated time slots when we were allowed to borrow one book for a two to three week period. I used to love just being in the center of an aisle and absorbing all those books appearing before me. I was usually the last to leave the room in our group, slipping my hand down glossy dustjacket covers freshly assigned to protect the books, noticing author's names alphabetically and simply loving what this library had to offer, though not much at all looking back on it now. It was a beginning for the school, sparse at best, but it was there straight across the hall from our classroom door!
Another memory I had were the times when a family friend was babysitting me while my mother worked, whose daughter and I occasionally visited the church library where my grandmother worked hard to keep the shelves there in some decent order. Those were the days when a church library was meant for its parishioners to borrow the books as “soul food”, which aren’t as likely to offer now as they used to, mostly as the books of those days slowly began to accumulate a great worth. Temptation bit at the coffers of the church purse, and dealers began to make their church circuit rounds for bringing in big bucks instead of more books to grace the shelves later on. Eventually the library closed, a true labour of love from many women in the parish who gave their talents for others. My estimate would be several thousand books once rested there at any given time, no longer though. But, I used to love to visit all those shelves in any library, making friends with authors whom I’ve come to know as an adult many years later.
"If we want the mind of a child to come alive, we feed him living ideas. Ideas reside in living books, which I think has something to do with the intermingling of story, fact, and the author’s opinion or viewpoint. Living books, unlike the compressed compilations of textbooks, are laced with emotion, saturated with ideas, and they convey information as well."
Books and coffee - what a concept!
Today we have bookstores, and to make any book addict’s world tougher, many box stores offer coffee centers inside so there is the temptation of sipping on a Starbucks fresh brew and browsing the stacks all at the same time. This is a whole new world to me the past dozen years or so, an outing I so cherish and yearn for when I feel the need to lose myself in yet another – book! What a tough thought – books and coffee!
After this preamble, and without further ado, please allow me to introduce you to another very favorite room - my library!
To begin with, this particular area had a few renovations necessary for settling all things into it.
Former owners used this room as a school room
The formers owners used this room for a homeschooling formal classroom, complete with bookshelves, desk systems and a large church organ. It was perfect to give it a facelift and turn it into a living area, conducive to our family’s library/living room desires instead. It was perfect with actual walls all around to place bookshelves up against, and plenty of natural lighting. I could visualize spending many pleasured hours inside of it in the future.
"No entertainment is so cheap as reading,
nor any pleasure so lasting."
~ Lady M.W. Montague
We had the carpet originally covering the floors pulled up and removed. (If you remember it was reinstalled in my office/studio room.) The original flooring company was contacted by our hired building contractor to have a wood flooring installed to match the rest of the floors nearby. Have I mentioned before how wonderful it is to have wood floors as opposed to carpet all over? For health reasons in particular, our allergy sufferers have faired much better, and they are far easier to manage for home care maintenance.
New wood floors!
Can you tell which floor is which, the old or the new?"A book which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story. The good ones last. A book which is not worth reading at age 50 is not worth reading at age 10."
~ C.S.Lewis
The bulk of my library contains many out-of-print children’s books, historical reads, biographies and reference books, those I would term and classify as “living books” for they capture the heart of any person, as though we are there in the midst of the story, the far away land, the time period setting descriptions, or the rhythm of the person’s life detailed within the pages of the covers. Living books are those able to stand the test of time as something both classic by nature and so deeply satisfying to read again and again, and to also behold. If a book cannot be read over and over again with the same joy it offered initially, by anyone of any age whether young or old, or able to steer the reader beyond the imaginable, it’s not considered something worth collecting to me. A book’s cover or title should invite us in, just as Mary Engelbreit’s library poster from many years ago visualizes a person trying to do. Jump on in, let’s take a journey…
"If we encounter a man of rare intellect,
we should ask him what books he reads."
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Before there were no shelves on this last wall.
AfterIkea is a great shopping venue for any sort of shelving or organizational efforts. Our original three shelves were purchased at this store. Soon afterwards they changed their mathematical sizing from using the imperial system to a metric system, thus also changing and creating a newer shelf without four inch of added width. For some, this was better. For others like us who had already begun delving into the wonderful world of biblio collectibles, it soon began to create a mishmash of future shelving sizes and those lovely glass doors are no longer an option for our library book collection environmental protection desires, mostly as they are no longer made for the early ones.
Remember these from the basement?
The big move begins!
Overwhelming task ahead but thesewill now have a permanent home!
More stuff to put on shelves!~ Richard Steele
To make matters more awe-inspiring was finding out we were actually able to completely fill these new shelves up with the piles hanging all about, (some carted from other rooms, some from boxes still packed and stored) and there isn’t a free spot remaining anywhere for more…unless of course we move out of this room someday and occupy a larger space, or I consider a few with values worthy of selling online. …smile.
To the left of the doorway (above)
Straight ahead - Our comfy-cozy reading chairs.
On the far right, windows on either side
of the newer three shelf units.
To the right of the doorway;Our sunset viewpoint is out this window
and others we can see from here.
One side of the window above, the other below.
We switched the room around in preparation for our winter sunsets once the days become shorter and shorter and this is the room we can have front row seating to gather for the day's end observations, saluting the sunsets just as we did last winter. The two blue wing backed chairs are a favorite spot for a morning coffee these days, as the morning chill on the back patio is not as enticing so early in the wee hours any longer. The couch is a favorite spot for reading aloud to the younguns, a place where three can gather and observe an illustration upon occasion while another is reading to them nearby.
The windows offer copious amounts of natural lighting into the room, but once we become veiled in darkness when evening falls, the spotlights overhead can simply become adjusted for a perfectly lit evening’s read directly below them.
All the bookshelves offer a place for everything and keeps everything in its place. Isn’t that a slogan we love to use, and love to see placed into action? Yep!
May I offer you a few of my favorite book browsing sites to view?
- Amazon Books
- Chapters
- Bookcloseouts
- Addall (new comparison pricing and out of print book search)
- Abebooks (used books search site)
- All Catholic books (deeply discounted Catholic and Multi-Homeschool supplier resources)
- Christian Book Distributors (all sorts of Christian and Homeschooling resources)
- Ebay (of course!)
And these are but a few of my favorites. Enjoy!
Qualities of a Living Book;
Ageless…story is appealing to both children and adults
Timeless…characters and themes transcend time and culture
Living…concepts and ideas touch the heart and mind
Literary…Well-written with a natural flow
Whole…tells a complete story that is interesting and satisfying
Inspiring…morally uplifting, providing literary models of sound moral character
~ Clay & Sally Clarkson (Educating the WholeHearted Child)
At the end of the day, this is my ever-cherished most earthly possession filled room and dearly beloved library. I am hoping to preserve and present it’s entirety as a gift for all our grandchildren someday, passing the flamed torch along for (hopefully) continued book savoring delights, so they too can sail away and drift off to other far away lands in the wonderful written and illustrated book covers each book on my shelves will entice them with, obviously inviting them into their pages. Come along with me they will say.....if you dare.
And the timeless censor of all for all books;
“…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worth praise, think about these things.”
~ Philippians 4:8
I hope you have enjoyed the tour.
