Saturday, March 16, 2019

A Home For Books

Daddy Steve: Gregoropolis is a book-loving household.  Daddy John loves to read and has a sizable personal library.  The kids, too, enjoy reading and have a lot of books.  Sometimes keeping them organized and tidy can be a challenge...

Anthony: These books are getting out of hand!  We need a proper place to store them.

My first thought was to build a bookcase myself.  I'm sure I could come up with something, but the problem is finding the time.  All of those boring but necessary activities like work, cooking, laundry, housework, etc. take up a lot of time. 

Marco: Daddy Steve said he might build us a bookcase himself.
Robin: >Sigh<  We'll all be in college by the time he gets around to that.

On to Plan B: Buy a ready-made bookcase, or at least something that could be adapted for the purpose.  I started searching the internet for things like 'curio shelves,' 'shadow boxes,' and 'drawer organizers' -- things that on a different scale would work as Sasha-sized bookshelves.  

One early find was this glass-doored cabinet, which was meant to be hung on a wall.  It's charming, and I think fairly old.  Unfortunately, it doesn't hold much.  We can still use it for dishes and other knick-knacks.

Meghan: It's a perfect place for our objet d'art.
Luke: Who's Art? What does he object to?  Why do you want to shut him up in that cabinet? 

I began to wonder if I was overthinking.  Perhaps it would be better to just search for  'doll bookcase?'  The problem was that all of the search results came up for 1/12 scale dollhouse miniatures.  But what if i were to search for '18 doll bookcase' -- as in an 18" (American Girl size) doll?  That's how I eventually found this bookcase on Etsy.  It's nicely made, and the shelves are even adjustable.

Frederick: Excellent craftsmanship
Daphne: And it matches our other furniture too!

Of course, right after I bought it I found the very thing that I had initially envisioned -- at Target for a whole $5.00.


I think it will work well for storing our toys and games.  We have a lot of those, too.

Sasha: It's nice to be organized.
Miguel: Indeed.

I'll probably repaint it because it has a sort of chalk-like paint finish that I'm not terribly fond of.  So we now actually have a surplus of storage space!  

And what to the kids say to this?

All: We need more books and games and toys!



6 comments:

Sasha's Vintage Boutique said...

Coraling all the kids stuff is a full time job it seems. I like the solutions you found, but alas, if the kids get their way, you'll need more shelves soon!!

Gregor Daddies said...

Hi Marti -
I was at Target today and picked up another 'herbs' shelf; this time for only $2.50! So now the kids have even more space to fill up, which they no doubt will!

Dee said...


I love all three of your finds for your shelving solutions. But beware it can become addictive!
Once you find a nice sized item , you start looking for more and soon they'll be shelving everywhere and yes the kids are right, they then need things to put in and on them !
But hey it's a good excuse to enjoy a little retail shopping on a smaller scale ;)
I loved all the children's comments as each piece of furniture arrived and was used.

Ginger said...

I like all of your new storage solutions Daddy Steve! The Target shelf looks especially practical especially for books and toys! I like your out-of-the- box thinking! However, you might have created some “monsters” though because there is a undeniable principle involved here. I am pretty certain that toys/books expand to OVER-occupy the space allotted for their storage! 😉. Have a great week! ❤️ xxx

Gregor Daddies said...

So true Ginger. Sometimes it seems like there's always far more 'stuff' going into our house than going out. It would seem to violate some law of physics.

Kendal said...

I'm most impressed with your problem solving here and I must say the resulting storage units look perfect.
Book cases imo always furnish a home so excellently.