Monday, April 12, 2010

The Great Spring Rearranging

About two weeks ago I came to the realization that I was rapidly running out of bookshelf space. The bookcases in my office: crammed. The DVD shelves in the bedroom: overloaded. The bookcases in the downstairs library: close to bursting. The solution? The four big bookcases given to me by my mother before she died. They've been sitting out in the garage for the last few years and the time finally came to clean them up, move them into the house and use them. Alas, things could not be that simple. Are they ever? Those four bookcases don't really match any of the others, so I wanted to keep them all together on one wall. This necessitated moving half the freaking house around. Because various bookcases were bought separately, not all match and are the exact same height. Others were inherited and are unique. Thus the great move went like this:

1. Move the four bookcases from the garage into the library.
2. The three bookcases usurped from the library would go upstairs, one to my office, two to the bedroom.
2. Move two existing bookcases from my office to the bedroom.
3. Move two different existing bookcases from the bedroom to my office.
4. Completely rearrange the (now) 8 bookcases in the bedroom.
5. Remove collectibles from one large bookcase in living room and place into two barrister bookcases given to us my The Other Half's mother.
6. Move this now empty bookcase and use it for books.
7. Move four small bookcases from various locations around house to bedroom.
8. Move one (of two) TVs from bedroom to office.
9. Rearrange entertainment center downstairs.
10. Buy wood and cut new shelves for various bookcases.

Of course, in order to do all this moving, all the books and DVD's in these bookcases had to be removed. Great googly moogly! I never knew how many I had until I went to take them out and keep them in the same order. There were books and movies stacked EVERYWHERE! Some books moved from one room to another, but for the most part, they stayed where they were at. The really tough part was because The Other Half has a pinched nerve in her neck/back, she can do very little physical work. Thus it fell on me to move everything by myself. With my bum shoulder it took some work, but I managed to get everything done over the last two weeks - and this is why it's been so quiet on this blog...I've been utterly exhausted. Now, after all this moving, there is plenty of shelf space for more books and DVD's. At least for another five years or so. After that, I have no idea what I'll do.

4 comments:

Alan W. Davidson said...

That's very brave of you (step #2) to take bookcases up stairs by yourself. Sound like you're well on your way to opening your own used book/video store if you ever want a career change.

Fox Lee said...

Bless you. I have no room for additional bookcases, at least not as many as I need!

Jamie Eyberg said...

You may have to move into a bigger house or put an addition on the one you have. If you live in an apartment you may have to take it upon yourself to off your neighbor to use their place. :)

Danielle Birch said...

Just reading that makes me want to have a lie down :)