How I Store All of My Books…Revisited

I’m sure that at least once, you’ve heard me talk (brag) about my collection of physical books. As of the time that I’m writing this I have 1905 books in my room….yes, in ONE room.

Back in February of 2012, I wrote the first “How I Store All of My Books” post. This seems to be the most popular post on my blog, even two years later. It seems that readers, authors, and all other book lovers enjoy seeing a large collection of books. Or maybe they thought I wrote the post beautifully…but I doubt that. It was one of the first posts from when I started focusing on turning this into a serious book blog. The post was flawed all over the place, I’m sure. Luckily at least, I’ve learned how to make them prettier 😉

Back at the time of the first post I had around 1,300 books. When I reached the 1,000 mark a few months earlier, I didn’t think I’d have much more room left to store my books. Then I got to the 1,300 range and still doubted I could fit more. How did I get up to the 1,900 and beyond level in the same one bedroom? Creativity, sacrifice, determination to feed the addiction!

In the pictures from the first post you can see exactly how I make the most of my shelf space, and I spell it out in the text to bring the point home. My mass-market paperback shelves are stacks three deep, four across, and as tall as the shelf can hold. There are HUNDREDS in the one case. This is similar to how I shelve the other cases and types of books, as well. I won’t bore anyone with rewriting this all again. You can refer back to the first post for that. Instead, I want to just briefly talk about how I “made” more room.

When you think you’ve run out of space, think outside the box. Or in this instance, think outside the bookcase. As long as there is a top to the case, there is another shelf. On one case, I built up the sides to extend the case upward. That allowed me to house even more books there. I put a top on that…for another shelf (See section 3 for those pics, with the DVD mention). I also do the same thing without the use of extra wood. You just have to make sure the books are of similar size and sturdy enough to stay in stacks. Hardcovers work best for this, but trade paperbacks that aren’t too warped with over reading work as well.

Bored yet? I hope not. I don’t really think there’s much else to say about how I store all these books other than if the time comes when I have to get rid of my bed, I might do that and just sleep on books. My dog might not like that though because he sleeps under the bed at times. Desperate times make us do drastic things, though.

I hope this revisit of my book collection was all I made it out to be. I’m sure I’ll be able to do another in the future. Soon I’ll be at 2,000 books and won’t know what to do with myself then. Can’t wait for that milestone!

Oh, and as an added bonus, I threw some pics at the bottom of the post that aren’t of books. I have some “decorative” bookish things in my room. I wanted to share some of them with everyone.

One last fun fact before you can see my books: At the end of the post two years ago, I mentioned that I was reading Rebecca Hamilton’s The Forever Girl. This time, as a pure coincidence, I’m reading an ARC of Come, The Dark, book 2 of The Forever Girl series.

1. Mass-Market Paperbacks

Three stacks deep

Top shelf

Middle shelf

Bed level shelf. Holds the most.

Below bed level. Holds the books I’ve already read and some I know I won’t get to for a long time.

2. Mainly Trade PB and Small HC

Top shelf

Middle shelf

Bottom shelf. Mainly large hardcovers.

3. Other Shelves

Built this to stack books on top of my DVD area, which is on top of another book case.

The poetry bookcase

I used to hold my DVDs in this case, but realized I could fit more books in here than DVDs, so I put the DVDs up top. The top shelf is mainly signed books, there are others mixed throughout the shelves as well.

If you stack the same sized books on top of things…it’s almost stable enough to trust .

Mainly children’s/middle grade/Harry Potter books

Right now being used to hold short story collections for A Storied Week reading.

My Preston/Child hardcovers (1st editions) and a few others. have to use all the space you have.

 

4. Just a few more places, I promise.

My Animorphs collection (almost the entire series). Haven’t read them since I was much younger, but I might 

Was able to get rid of some board games and other useless stuff last year. Cleared up this entire shelf in my “closet”. Just wish I could clear the two shelves above it. Will have to do that in time. This may have been in the first post.

Same shelf. Storing them two deep.

Another area where I hope stacking them is stable enough.

5. The Fun Section: Some of the book decorations in my room.

Some of the first swag I got from Tiffany King! (And my iPod thing, displaying the wrong time.)

An illustration from Cinta Garcia de la Rosa’s The Funny Adventures of Little Nani.

Huge print of the ORIGINAL cover for Tiffany King’s book No Attachments, in a crude frame made from the cardboard it was shipped in.

Random bookmarks (I switch them out regularly). Some of my Grimoire saga Swag from S.M. Boyce and a flyer from a poetry reading for Jericho Brown.

Just had to show my huge dictionary that I use less than I thought I would when I got it.

Did you enjoy this post? Has it inspired you to rearrange your bookshelves and free up some space?

I’d love to see what my readers book collections look like. If anyone would like to share some pictures and info about their collections, I’d be open to posting a guest edition of this post featuring a reader’s collection. It’d be great to be able to show various personal libraries to everyone else.

If this sounds fun to you, comment on this post or message me through the contact form and we’ll get that all set up.