I was still working at organising the study this week and I finished the Bookcases there.
Now I know I have a lot of ebooks on my kindle but I still have loads of ordinary books and that is one area I really find hard to tidy up and organise because I take ages to decide whether or not to get rid of some books.
The bookcases were really out of hand, completely cluttered and such a messy sight that I had to cut down on the number of books and move off a lot of things that should not really be there.
I love these 4 bookcases which we bought over 20 years ago when we were living in America and they are still in good condition after the move back to Northern Ireland and then the move to Belgium and finally back to Northern Ireland again.
Even though I decided to get a white desk 2 years ago I could have been tempted to paint these white to match but either I'm too lazy or I still love the type of wood in the bookcases and I think it truly is the latter.
The 2 bookcases on the left are full length shelved and the other 2 are shelved on top and have a cupboard on the bottom.
So taking them one at a time I decluttered and organised the bookcases and the cupboards.
Working from the left
This is the bookcase which contains our Christian Novels on the first 5 shelves.
They are in alphabetical order by author (yes I'm a bit fussy and like to be able to find my books easily - and now it is even easier without the clutter in front).
The bottom shelf is the hardest to get at so it contains all the bible study books we have had over the years working with youth groups and homegroups and personal ones too.
The second shelf has all my Davis Bunn physical books and then my kindle has the rest. I have practically every book he has written and was also privileged to be part of his launch team for one of his books last year and got to review it on my blog - The Strait of Hormuz
The ornaments on the shelves are mostly little personal items and from previous blog posts you will know that I love Arks, and I love Bears, and I love Boxes.
The second bookcase continues on the Christian Novels in alphabetical order again for the first 5 shelves.
The bottom shelf this time is full of nonfiction Christian books.
If you look closely at the fifth shelf you can see a thick book (black & white cover) by Elizabeth Elliot who died very recently. Sorting out these shelves made me want to read a lot of my books again and this is definitely one of those to reread soon.
Also on the 4th shelf are all my Penelope Stokes novels (as far as I know I have all the novels she has written plus her book about writing novels and her book about faith).
My favourite is The Blue Bottle Club which was the first book I reviewed on this blog.
The third bookcase has the top two shelves devoted to Bibles, commentaries, dictionaries and information books on the Bible.
Then the third shelf contains all my Agatha Christie books.
The red hardbacks are my complete Herron Collection of her books including the Who's Who and then there are two paperbacks of the two books that for some reason were not included in the Herron collection. As you can see they are in two rows - 37 of them with two books in each.
I love to sit with these hardbacked books to reread the Christie stories before I review them on this blog.
The last bookcase has some photo albums of the kids (someday I might tell the story of those and why Linda always goes on about how you can tell she is the third child).
Then it also has some cookbooks and other miscellaneous books that are special to me, my journals from when we lived in America and in Belgium and some Dutch Novels.
The Bottom shelf just has some ornaments for now but I bet that later on it will be filled with other books because I just could not make up my mind about all of my non-Christian books yet.
Then there were the two cupboards under the shelves of 3 and 4
This is what was in cupboard 3 - Stationary but rather mixed up.
At least it wasn't as bad as cupboard 4 where lots of things tumbled out unto the floor when I opened the doors.
There were obviously too many books shoved in badly to the top shelf of this cupboard.
But then of course as Fred always says - I need to make a mess when sorting things out and that is what I did here because I pulled everything out and sorted it all there on the floor and replaced more than half of it.
It is now so much neater and better organised
with the top shelf dedicated to the books that I use to do the Sunday School Curriculum and the bottom shelf for all our Dutch notebooks and grammar books and exercise books.
Notice there is also some extra space on both shelves - wonder how long that will be there!
Well I also got everything out of cupboard 3 and sorted that into piles on the floor as you can see here when I remembered to take a picture half way through the job.
We love notebooks and files and folders as you can see above.
And the finished cupboard didn't end up completely full either.
Now I can see better what notebooks and journals I still have and can get at all the envelopes and files better.
You may have noticed something on the inside of the left doors of both of these cupboards too.
Gripping Stuff:
It is sticky on both sides so it sticks to the door (or other surfaces and then paper or card can be stuck to it.
It comes in sheets which can be cut to any size and I had cut two pieces just a little smaller than A5 size for the two cupboards a couple of years ago.
Then I had used 2 pieces of A5 card and written on them the contents of the cupboards with the intention of marking off things as we used them so that I would always know how many we had of things and where they were but I started that and then got lazy or forgot and after a while it was no longer accurate.
So not too sure what to do about this but that can be a decision I make when the Study is nearing completion.
Besides that small ongoing thought I am really happy with my
