Monday, July 21, 2008

Too Many Books

I had my bookcases lined up against one wall. The problem with that was the wall had formerly not had a floor attached to it but a staircase. At some point the previous owners had taken out the stairs and done a good-enough job of a patch. Good-enough for walking on and playing on. Not nearly good enough for hundreds of pounds of books.

The floor has gotten a bit soft, the bookcases were dangerously wobbly. Yesterday I moved them.

I know you guys know the work involved when moving books in a homeschooling house.

Here's about forty percent of them in various piles before I culled them and put away the keepers:






I should mention that the cull isn't an honest one. I simply took out most of our scifi and fantasy paperbacks to put into storage since no one is reading them at the moments. Better to stick to what we're actually using.

I am not looking forward to when we have to pack all the books up when we eventually move house.

11 comments:

Tuxzilla said...

Ugh, book! I feel your pain. I just set up 2 tall bookcases after moving them from another province. Also a small book case and two more bookshelves in the kids rooms. Only I don't like where the three bookcases in the "den" ended up and now I have to move them. Sigh. It is laminate, I am hoping I can just put a towel under the bookcases and push them. Sigh...

Andrea R said...

I still haven't unpacked all the books from last year's move. Heck, even the library books sale books are still in some boxes.

of course, we need about 3 more large bookshelves...

Anonymous said...

It does not help when your 8 and 9 y.o. children want to keep baby touch & feel books like "Fuzzy yellow ducklings" either!

I got all Martha-like a couple years ago and determined no plastic or mdf crap in my life... then when I realized a bookcase would cost me $200 versus Canadian Tire's $40 cheapo sale I quickly un-Martha'd.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of books... and having to store them... I've been wanting for a couple years to have a "cover forward" shelving system which I could cycle featured books on. I've looked at flip chart type pocket systems, doctors office chart holders and more, but this strikes me as what we'll do:Rain Gutter Book Shelves.

Cool huh? The whole article struck me as a little humourous though in that putting covers out what such a revolutionary idea and attracted interest. Well... duh!

Anonymous said...

Hmm, that rain gutter thing would be cool in hallways or other locations where you couldn't reasonably put a bookshelf... I am so not sharing our mess of books at the moment... right now, they're in shelves-need-straightened mode... which means half of them are right side up and on the shelf properly, and the other half are sideways on top of them... which drives me absolutely nuts. But it IS proof that they're getting read... so I shouldn't complain too loudly.

And the books-in-the-house don't count my fourteen boxes of mostly-crochet books in storage...

and yes, i'm having withdrawls.

Dawn said...

I knew I'd get responses on this post! LOL

Seems to be a common problem in homeschooling fmailies. :) I have got them all put away and I managed to pack up enough that my bookcases don't have double rows of paperbacks and books stuffed above those.

molytail said...

Yeah I feel your pain LOL ...there are books piled all over my living room because we have one - yep, just one - bookshelf. Meeeeeep!

Hey I spy a Mercedes Lackey novel in there...I remember reading some of those - my cousin had them...

Hahahahaha - "The idiots guide to living on a budget" ...K, I totally need that book LOL ...and it's little! Was that meant to be humourous, I wonder, or are some of those just made small? Heh, I'm gonna look for that one LOL

Anonymous said...

What??? You're not supposed to have double rows of paperbacks and books stuffed on top of those??? Uh oh...

Anonymous said...

I chuckled at "The idiots guide to living on a budget" too, it got me thinking that if I had a bucketful of time I'd make a "homeschool bookshelves" website where people posted pics of their shelves so we could peruse them on the interweb. Now that would be fun.

Dawn said...

That woulds be awesome...You know it could at least be a blog meme...

Anonymous said...

Okay now I don't feel so bad. Hubby found two boxes of books I had out in the garage yesterday, looked at the bookcase, the pile of books next to the bookcase, and the books on top of the bookcase and said "Really? We really need this many books for homeschooling?". LOL