Photos: Filling Bookcases

I'd intended to sew today, but the stacks of hymnbooks I'd found upstairs and brought down to the living room a few days ago were bugging me.  I hate to quit in the middle of a project!

Sooo... I brought a little oak bookcase from the addition into my little office, and a corner piece to the upper hallway corner.  Then I started playing 'musical books and albums', which is quite a lot more tiring than 'musical chairs', especially if you are transporting stacks of books and albums up and down one or more flights of stairs.

I have now emptied the bins full of books, putting them back into bookcases, and taken albums out of the bottom of the big bookcase.  Most of my albums are now in bins, though there are quite a few in the hope chest.  The books are sorted and in order, and I found a number that I will give back to the children.  Even found a cookbook that belonged to one of the teachers -- given to her as a graduation gift in 1974.  I have no idea how or why we wound up with it.

I'm not done, as there is one more large bin full of books downstairs.  But I need Larry to retrieve it for me, as it's big and heavy and too high for me to reach.  It will probably fill the rest of any bookcases that aren't full yet.

Bookcase in the room that will become my sewing room.  I got the center section filled with mostly quilting books -- and then remembered there were over a dozen more on a high shelf in the linen closet.  I retrieved them... put them in the bookcase... (some in the side cupboard) ---- and remembered these that I've recently been reading:

I just got the second book, A People and Their Quilts, by John Rice Irwin, last week.

The library room, with the afternoon sun shining in.  One of these days, I'll put that old quilt on my quilting frame and do some quilting in those big squares and triangles that look so saggy-baggy.  (They don't look that bad in real life, when the overhead light is on.)

I'm so pleased with this room, I can't quit looking at it.  😊

One of the bookcases in the living room.

Bookcase #2.

Inside the top fold-down door...

Some of those hymnbooks with the covers partially missing are over a hundred years old.  A friend found some at a thrift store many years ago, and gave me quite a few.  They have a number of songs we can't find anywhere else, and some are by favorite composers, both lyricists and composers.  

Inside the double doors at the bottom -- needs more books to fill it up.  These shelves and the large area above them, behind the fold-down door, were crammed full of albums.  The albums are now upstairs in big plastic totes.  One of these days, I'll start scanning those old photos.  I have over 250 large albums chock full of pictures.

The living room.

Upstairs in the hallway, I put the corner piece.  It's special, because my late nephew David made it for us.

Oak bookcase in my little office.  I spotted a box of books out in the addition that still need to be put in this case.  There's a sliding rocker in the basement that will go in this room, and maybe a child's rocking bench, too, if the room isn't too crowded.

The rolltop desk is cleaned out and dusted.  Larry will have to take it apart to get it out of this room and into my new sewing room.

Assortment rearranged after finding all the books in the linen closet.

Larry has now removed the overhead shelf and rod, measured the opening, and rounded up the oak trim he will use to frame it.  He has matching oak flooring with which to piece in that area where the wall used to be.  Do you see Teensy?

And now, since I got a few questions about 'all those books', I've taken close-ups of each shelf.  If you click on the pictures to enlarge them, you should be able to see most of the titles.

Side cupboard of the bookcase in my sewing room.  That bottom shelf is entirely full of magazines.  My grandchildren's piano teacher gave me a heaping box full of quilting magazines, and I added to it by purchasing a stack of Martha Pullen's Sew Beautiful smocking magazines from someone who was selling them cheap.  I gave a few to Lydia after giving her a smocking pleater, and greedily kept the rest for myself.  She has made some beautiful things with her pleater; I should give her some more of these magazines.  ("Hi, Lydia!")  ((waving))

Drawers in bookcase and filings cabinets and a number of shelves are still empty.  Don't worry; there are plenty of things in my downstairs sewing room to fill them.  😉

Teensy likes to be in whatever room I happen to be in.

"Oops, sorry for disturbing your catnap, Teensy."

Back downstairs in the living room...

The plaque on the right, on which is printed verses from John 14:1-3, was in the center of a wreath someone gave our family for my father's funeral in 1992.

The blue Bible Story books were mine when I was little.  There are a few extras that I found at a secondhand store somewhere.

Left side of headboard...

... and right side of headboard.

The little oak bookcase that needs to be filled up...

Teensy, following me back down the stairs.