The Book Case is Now White

Here is the new/old book case we bought at the antique store.  It was painted green, was very dirty, and had a wobbly board on the back of it.

Remember what it looked like before?  Handy Man put two coats of white glossy latex paint on it, and we moved it to the guest room.  He also removed the board on the back of it.  I started to put some pictures and trinkets on top of it, and moved some books into it.  I don’t have all the books moved up there yet, but I like how it looks so far.  I really love how it looks next to the light blue walls and the white trim.

And yes, that is the Twilight series on the second shelf.  I am still on the first book!  (Don’t laugh, I have been super busy blogging, and I just got the set for Christmas.  Never mind that its after Valentine’s Day now!)

We have quite an oddball collection of books.  We have new and old books of all subjects.   On the same shelf as the Twilight books, you may be able to see some light blue books.  Those are my Little House on the Prairie books.  They are paperback and I have had them since I was a child.  I suppose I could buy nicer hardcover copies; but I like the worn paperbacks.

On the top shelf are books that I have already read.  I bought several of them at Goodwill for 25 or 50 cents.  Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to books that I want to read (as you can see, with the Twilight books!), so I like to just buy them and have them around for a while.  If I don’t love a book, when I’m finished with it, I will pass it on to someone.  If I love it, I’ll keep it.  Most of those paperbacks are books I probably won’t read again, but I wanted to check them out.

Do you have a lot of books around?

Posting this on the great web site, Tip Junkie/House of Grace/Funky Junk Interiors/Domestically Speaking

Another New/Old Bookcase

I recently discovered that we are outgrowing our space for books, and decided that I wanted to buy a smallish book case for our upstairs guest room.  Right now, we have Handy Boy’s old changing table up there.  Yes, an old changing table!  It’s really a dresser with a top that you can use for a changing table.  We bought a soft pad to put on top, and changed Handy Baby on it.  We stored some diapers, pajamas, and other baby things in the drawers.   It was a handy item for us back then, but it’s not really serving a purpose now, since I have another dresser in that room.  I thought a book case would go nicely in that spot.

We went to an antique store last weekend.  Handy Man took measurements with us.  Usually when we go on a hunting mission, it can take weeks, or even months of on-and-off hunting to find the right item.  However, I found this book case right away in a local antique shop that we had never been to before.  There were several small objects and books on it.  I told Handy Man that it looked like the right size, but there was no price on it.

I asked the workers at the shop what the price was, and they weren’t sure.  They called the dealer to find out what he would sell it for.  Now, this is not a “priceless” antique…and it doesn’t even have a real back on it; it only has a piece of plywood on the back…and it’s painted a shade of green that we are not in love with.  However, we knew that painted white, to go with our other guest room furniture, it would look much better!  We would just be placing books on the shelves, so the back piece wouldn’t even show (although Rob would paint it white also.) 

I was trying to think of how much I would be willing to pay for it, when the shop worker told me the dealer would sell it for $35.  :-O  That was well under what I was willing to pay, so we bought it!  Here it is, in all of it’s dirty, green, glory.  (Seriously, there’s a lot of dust and dirt on it, but it will be cleaned up and painted.)

I think that people can be afraid of the prices in antique stores, but they shouldn’t be!  Sure, there are some stores with items in them selling for a minimum of $500.  And yes, some antiques are worth a lot and should be priced accordingly.  But usually, antique stores have a good variety of both expensive and inexpensive pieces.  This book case might not even be that old, or worth a whole lot, but it’s perfect for us.

Stay tuned for pictures of the cleaned up and painted book case…and don’t be shy about wandering into local antique stores to look for bargains.  You never know what you may find.

Books

I have started to get into reading a bit more, now that Handy Boy is bigger and I can take some time to read more than a magazine article.  We do have several books that I like to read and re-read…but I also like the library for borrowing books.

I used to work in libraries, so here’s a tip:  If your local library doesn’t have the book you want, ask for them to order it for you through interlibrary loan.  This may sound obvious, but some people don’t know about interlibrary loans.  You can ask your librarian to order a book for you from another library.  It could take up to a week, but the library will call you when the book is in.  Another advantage to this is that you can usually keep the books you borrow from another library for longer than two weeks, sometimes for about a month.

Another way for me to read books on the “cheap” is to buy them at places like Goodwill, library book sales, or yard sales.  I’ve been excited to find books that I’ve been “meaning to read” for just $1 or even just 50 cents!  You just never know what you will find at Goodwill, especially in the book section.

Or bookcase from this post has gotten filled up pretty nicely…but in the interests of keeping our book collection to a manageable amount, if I don’t like the book and/or I know I won’t read it again, I bring it back to Goodwill and donate it back.   We have a good amount of books, but not a lot of space for bookcases, so I try to keep the amount we have down to what we have space for on our shelves.

Do you collect books?  How many do you have?  Enough for one bookcase, enough to fill a small public library, or something in-between?