We love books around here. If there’s one item that I feel completely justified in hoarding, it’s books.
Everyone knows that a kid can have too many toys, but they can’t have too many books . . . right?
Wrong.
They have too many books when the bookshelf looks like this:
I worked on the boys’ room last fall and made huge progress. And with their daily chore chart, they do a good job of picking up their room each night. But I’ve basically taught them the art of selective vision by letting the bookshelf slide. They would try to shove any/all books in the room on there, but obviously, there just wasn’t enough room.
We do love books, but now that my youngest is 4, we have outgrown quite a few. She’s into stories for the sake of a story, and so there were quite a few young-child books we didn’t need. I tend to make blanket statements like, “All books are good!” when I really need to take the time to analyze which ones we do and don’t need. Yes, it is entirely possible to have too much of a good thing.
I got rid of an entire box full of books, took all chapter books to their designated shelf in the office, and threw away all of the trash that somehow blends in when you have a mountain of books.
Here’s what was left:
And things other than trash blend in when you have piles of clutter. Sometimes treasure gets buried as well. This is a ribbon that my 6yo won for growing a plant, something he is incredibly proud of. And we hadn’t seen it in months because it had fallen behind the bookshelf, and was lost in the clutter.
Now, to go through the other three bookshelves and purge them of too-young books.
I’m linking this up to Money Saving Mom’s Clear out the Clutter Challenge, Kids’ Bedrooms.
Great Job! I recently cleaned out an overflowing bookshelf and ended up donating all of it. My kids are now in their teens and all of the books were for much younger kids. We took three bags to the library, they were very grateful. I also brought in a box of books to someone I work with. Her kids are now enjoying them.
Oh how I love books too…especially ones for my boys! Check out my blog, a few weeks back I posted on how I organize my huge selection of kids books. Maybe this way you can keep some more of 'em and still be organized :)http://thissweetlifeofours.blogspot.com/2010/03/organizing-mounds-of-books.html
We LOVE books! Check out a post on my blog about how I organize our kids books! Maybe you can keep some more of them this way and still be organized! :)http://thissweetlifeofours.blogspot.com/2010/03/organizing-mounds-of-books.html
We are bookaholics here. My dear sis-in-law is always sending the kids more books, so we have lovingly nicnamed her the Book Fairy. :o) She is a media specialist at an elementary school, so she is always "in the know" of what kids are reading these days. Add to those books are our school books, b/c we are a homeschool family of 7 kids ages 5 1/2 months to 15. I need to take pics of all of our books and download it to my blog… that is after I can tackle the clutter. http://www.awholebunchofhills.blogspot.com
Just know you are not alone!
Wow, very cool "after" shot! Your shelf looks beautiful. One of the things that has helped to motivate me to clear out our books is that our church hosts a flea market every summer, where you can rent a booth and sell your stuff. It's great incentive to know you'll make some money for your efforts (you know — to buy more books!) How wonderful, that you unearthed that ribbon! 🙂 Good job.
Hey Nony! I highly recommend using a file sorter on kid bookshelves:
http://www.oppictures.com/singleimages/400/FEL22304_2_1.JPG
I started using them on my kids’ bookshelf and it has helped IMMENSELY in keeping it neat & tidy! Kids’ books are notorious for being all sorts of weird shapes and sizes and sliding all over the place, but the file sorter makes it easy for my kids to pull a book out without the rest of the books on the shelf toppling all over the place. 🙂
Books. Books are my weakness, my Achilles’ heel, books are for me what shoes are for the rest of women… I’ve had a long love affair with books that borders in obsessive. And yet I have come to realize that this attachment to books is keeping me from moving on to develop other aspects of my life. I honestly don’t know how many books I currently have, but I have donated boxes of books to my local library, and I still have way too many books. This is one area where my husband and I have arguments that end nowhere. If he could get his way, I wouldn’t have more books than would fit in three bookcases.
I was inspired by Peter Walsh’s book “It’s All Too Much” to downsize considerably my book collection. That’s where I’ve concentrated my decluttering efforts for the last couple of weeks. I decided that I would weed my collection down to 300 books, the amount of books that would roughly fit in TWO five-shelf bookcases. Let’s see how it goes.
Very timely for me. I already culled 3 bags of books yet had many stuck in all sorts of nooks and crannies. Also some got damaged b/c they were struck away in garage and subject to temp/moisture. I bought 2 bookcases with glass doors. Now reducing books to fit in these. It’s hard but I already got rid of 3 more yesterday. Approx 50 books left to eliminate.