Monday 31 August 2015

Bookshelves Makeover



A few weeks ago I showed the view from my bed on Instagram, got some funny comments like 'being a maximalist' which made me laugh.
I've always loved my bookshelves and although through the years small changes appeared, it was pretty much the same view for 10 years. Then I posted this blogpost about my little globe collection and slight obsession over them, with a lovely picture of bookshelves with globes and vintage crates and color coordinated books, and all of a sudden I got totally inspired and thought; 'hey I've got globes, I've got vintage crates and I've got books, I can totally have what that pretty pictures shows!'


And taddaaaa! After some hours of work in a period of a week, I all of a sudden had a pretty awesome bookshelves view myself :)
The vintage crates I have for many years but they were out of sight, and I never got to enjoy them. I got rid of a few stacks of magazines which I was never going to look in to again anyway and put all other papers and not so pretty stuff in the crates. I had to adjust some heights of the shelves to accommodate the new arrangement.


And then I started rearranging all the books by color. I thought it would never work, in the mess I never realized how many pretty colored books I actually have! Arranging them by color was actually very satisfying and fun to do.


I also uncluttered it a bit and removed some of the decorative stuff as the books were now pretty they didn't need so much covering up :)
I did cover some of the ugly maps spines with some cheerful magazine clippings to let them blend in better and making them less boring in the progress, still need to do a few of those.


I also filled up some frames I bought years ago and never got around filling them up, like this pretty wooden one got little map pictures which I found during my uncluttering process and apparently had cut out of magazines who-knows-when.


And my globe collection expanded, which makes me all giggly and happy :)



Now I'm beating myself up on why I did not do this years ago, but I am happy that I did it and smile every time I go to bed an look at my pretty view. Still needs a few little adjustments but I'll do those, eventually when inspiration strikes again, hopefully not in another 10 years :)


11 comments:

  1. Haha! Love the colour arrangement! Now next time I go book hunting I'll be sure to see if the colour of the spine will be to my liking :-)
    Recently came across a post where they still produce hand-painted globes by the way, every time I see yours I remind myself to send you the link, they're amazing!

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    1. Yes, I know them, following them on instagram :) Their cheapest globe is 2000 pounds, not in my budget but amazing indeed :)

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    2. Aha, too late I see ;-)
      For the interested, here they are: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/08/handcrafted-globes/

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  2. Love the way you arrange your books by color! I haven't seen so many colorful books in any library until now! And the globe collection looks stunishing! :)

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  3. Ah yes much better indeed!
    I've seen the color arrangement of books for quite some time, but I prefer having my books by theme and in alphabetic order for the fictional stuff, hence why I'm not sure I'll ever try that way of organizing even though it looks incredible :)
    And I love your globe collection :)

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    1. Yes normally alphabetic is indeed the way to go but mine were never sorted in anyway, anyway :) My mother has a few thousand books and hers are sorted alphabetically or it would be impossible to find any.

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  4. I love how it looks like now!!!! You definetely had a fun while were reorganizing the shelves.

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  5. Love the arrangement and the collections on the selves!!!

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  6. Love the arrangement by color and I love your collection of globes!

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  7. Great improvement! It took me a long time to realize I like watching organized stuff much better than chaos too!

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  8. Beautiful arrangement! Like Steph, I would be afraid not to find anything if I can't remember the color of the spine ;-)

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