Thursday, July 08, 2010

Phase 2

With the downstairs family room effectively cleared out, it's now time to move on to Phase 2 of the ongoing mission: Set Up Kevin's Library and Clear Out the Laundry Room. As you might have guessed, I've got a ton of books, and most of them have been in apple box storage for years while I've been away in Korea (some books are still in Korea! thanks, Joe). Those books, along with a pile of Dad's and my brothers' old books, all need to be taken out and shelved. For that, I need actual bookshelves. We've got a few bookshelves already in the laundry room, but I need more-- way more. Most of the shelving in the laundry room needs to stay right where it is: once the books are taken out of there, I'll be using those shelves for stacking paint cans, turpentine, tools, camping equipment, and other miscellaneous doodads.

Many of my books will end up shelved in my room, but a goodly number will grace the walls of the basement family room. Maybe it's a guy thing, but I've heard that, when you're out of ideas, books make for fine decor. Unfortunately, most of the books I have are textbooks of some sort or another-- paperbacks, not beautiful leather-bound editions.

I imagine that this new phase of the project will take at least a week to complete. Not only must the books come out, but they must also be organized (something I never did in Korea, where I had only a small fraction of my library). The end result ought to be a laundry room with more breathing space. One day at a time, though: today, the focus is on purchasing the bookshelves and putting them together.


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1 comment:

Nathan B. said...

I loved reading about your book shelves. I've actually managed to sell a good deal of my books; these are mostly technical volumes in ancient Near Eastern languages. Would you like to guy a Phoenician and Punic grammar? Anyway, so far, I've got about $800 for about 5 large boxes of books in the last year, and I got rid of many boxes before that. A little of this money is going back into books, ironically enough.

I am slowly paring down my collection to the books I will never sell--and I've still got about 700 individual volumes. I'm hoping to sell another five large boxes before the end of the year.

I have many books that I won't sell, though. There are many titles that I still want to add to my collection, a particular highlight of which is an antique bookcase with glass covers. This houses my oversized books, as well as most of my Folio Society titles. The rest are housed in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that I still enjoy looking at. A good library deserves a good set of bookcases.