Books, books, and more books

Last May, while we were preparing for our Babycito's arrival, we decided that it made the most sense for him to share our bedroom with us. We had to get rid of our dresser to make room, but then we needed a place to set some of our things that were displaced. We decided that a tall skinny bookcase would fit perfectly on the small wall space between our bathroom and closet doors. So, we found this Billy Bookcase in the Ikea catalog, borrowed a friend's truck, and drove an hour-ish to the closest Ikea store. Or as my husband calls it, Icky-uh.
We got home, took it out of the box, and discovered that we bought the wrong one! It was the same price but much wider. After the hassle of borrowing a truck and paying for the gas to drive 2 hours in it, we decided to just keep it. It just fits. Well, it overlaps the door frames, but not the doorways. And it turns out we could use the extra shelf space. Here are the shelves before. We threw a bunch of things on them with no rhyme or reason. Not so pretty. There was also a pile of stuff on the floor in front of them.


To organize them, I started by taking everything off. Most of the stuff on the floor wound up in our closet when it got organized. Then, I planned out what would go on each shelf. From the top down, it goes:
1) My husband's toys (Lego Ferraris, Lego Buzz, and an Easy Button) which used to be on top of the living room bookcases
2) My husband's additional books and several boxes of keepsakes and odds and ends (he also has three bookcases in the living room!) which were previously on his bedside table and the floor on his side of the bed
3) Some of my books and a couple of picture frames
4) My photo albums and journals. The photo albums were previously on top of a bookcase in the living room.
5) The rest of my books, some of which were previously falling all over the place on my bedside table shelf
6) Baby books. At the rate him and his dad are going, we are going to need a library room!


I removed the baskets from the top of the bookcase because it looks much neater that way. Two of the living room bookcases no longer have anything on top of them either since my photo albums and my husband's Legos were moved onto our bedroom bookcase.

I like having Mr. Babycito's books on the bottom where he can easily pull them off. Also, this bookshelf already has an L bracket holding it to the wall so it won't fall on him.

I am definitely enjoying looking at our bookcase much more now that it is finally organized. I'd love to improve it some more by finding nicer looking boxes and further editing what is displayed on it, but for now it works and is a major improvement!

I would love to someday have our books stored in a hallway like this...

(image originally from houzz.com)

Or artfully arranged on custom turquoise built-ins like this...

(image originally from Brabourne Farm)

Isn't it fun to dream? What do you think of our bookcase makeover? What do you store on your bookshelves? Are they neatly styled or more functional? What would your dream bookshelves look like?