c/fix-my-messy-shelf

Hit 500 books on my shelf and had a mini panic attack

I counted last weekend while reorganizing and I'm sitting at exactly 500 volumes on two Billy shelves. That number surprised me because I always thought I was a casual reader, but apparently not. The weird part is that 300 of them are still unread, so I finally made a rule about borrowing before buying. How do you folks keep your TBR pile from eating the whole room?

2 comments

reed.ray•11d ago

Unpopular opinion: The color coded shelf system my sister swears by actually made things worse

My sister came over last month and helped me reorganize my study, sorting everything by cover color like they do in those fancy bookshop displays. It looked great in the photos she took, but now I cannot find a single reference book without scanning every shelf. I keep about 300 volumes in that room, mostly local history and field guides, and after three weeks of hunting for my 1998 Tulsa county atlas I gave up and moved everything back to plain alphabetical order. Has anyone else ditched the aesthetic approach for something that just works, or am I the only one who thinks function beats looks here?

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stellabennett•12d ago

My double stacking trick for paperback rows on deep shelves

I used to line up every book spine flush against the front edge, which left a huge empty gap behind on my 14 inch deep shelf. Last month I started turning the back row to face the wall and stacking them two deep, so the front row hides the backs completely. Anyone else do the double stack method, or do you worry about not seeing the titles in the back?

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rowan_hayes•12d ago

The shelf that took 3 years to finally get right

Last week I finally finished reorganizing my bookcase in my Chicago apartment, but the journey started back in 2021 when I first moved in. Back then I just shoved everything anywhere, cookbooks next to sci-fi novels, and it was a total disaster every time I needed something. Last month I tried grouping by color, looked pretty for about 2 days, then I couldn't find my repair manual when the sink leaked. Yesterday I sorted by how often I actually use each book, and now the top shelf is just my daily reads and the bottom holds the stuff I've kept for sentimental reasons. Anybody else ditched a fancy organizing system for a super practical one that looks kinda boring?

2 comments

the_logan•13d ago

My aunt's 3-box rule finally made my shelf chaos make sense

Last month my aunt flew in from Tucson and saw my shelf situation. She told me to grab three boxes from the garage and label them keep, donate, and maybe. I thought it was too simple, but she made me sort each book before I could even think about organizing. After 4 hours I had 40 books in the keep box, 23 in donate, and only 7 in maybe. That maybe box is still sitting in my closet, but the shelf itself looks like a real bookshelf now. Did anyone else get handed a weirdly basic rule that just clicked for them?

1 comments