Extreme Library Makeover!

When my husband and I bought our condo two years ago, that sweet and wonderful man of mine allowed me to dub one of our rooms as a library. I had a great vision of a classic library with deep and enveloping colors, books lining every wall, a place where I could escape into with my other passion, reading. After applying 14 bazillion coats of red paint, moving in our puny unmatched bookcases, plus a year and a half of junk piling up, this is what my supposed hideaway had become:



An ugly, splotchy catch-all of a junk room. Not so cozy, huh?

In June when Guy asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I said that I wanted my library redone, complete with new paint and new bookshelves. "Your wish is my command, dear lady!" he responded with glee... or more accurately, "you sure you don't just want some jewelry?"

To his credit, within a week or too we had been able to box up the books, junk the most decrepit of the shelves, and primer & repaint over the horrid red (yes I admit I picked that horrid red - c'mon, it looked great on a 1x1 card!). I was thrilled -just a few more days for my perfect bookshelves to arrived...just a few more weeks...a month.. a letter in the mail that the company had folded and here's your money back. Shit.

By that time we both got too busy to deal with it and unfortunately had because utter used to having piles of books in every room, waiting to be shelved. Until the day after Christmas when I was sitting there thinking of what books, yarn, and/or books about yarn I wanted to buy myself and I realized that I should get up, get Guy and his big ol' truck and just buy some damn bookshelves already.

It only took one trip to the store, three guys to get the shelves up the twisty staircase, and 2 hours for me to get the books re-categorized and alphabetized (I'm kinda fanatical about that, perhaps due to the college years spent working at my local Borders) and voila!



My new and improved book nest, with walking space to boot!

Sure, I still need to actually hang the art on the walls but I love my library. I'm very much looking forward to spending this upcoming weekend as a hermit, holed up in it with a cup of coffee in hand, reading my buddy's top secret pre-released first novel. Yes, if the author of said novel is reading this blog now do note that I said first, as in, I expect there to be subsequent novels outta you.