I don't collect shoes or purses or jewelry. However, I do have a thing for books, and it was a torture in my old home to not have them out because of a lack of shelving. For seven years, we talked about built-ins, but my husband was always so busy with work that he never was able to get around to it.
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| Sad books confined to boxes and yearning to be free |
When we bought our new house, one of the features we fell in love with was an office with a loft -- perfect for a library. However, rather than wait for time/energy to install built-ins, we took the easy way out and got inexpensive bookcases from Ikea.
The tricky part was getting them (as well as a few pieces of furniture and a stereo) up a very narrow spiral staircase. I'm still not sure how we did it, but we managed.
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Everyone needs a chair for reading.
Even if DH didn't get to make the shelves, he did make the other furniture. |
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| Some music if you like. |
It was heavy, dusty work, but it was a labor of love. Although we're already out of shelf space, I can't help feeling
satisfied. Every time I even glance at my books, I feel like Maureen O'Hara's character in
The Quiet Man the morning she gets her dowry.
For the past two months, I've been up and down, excitedly poring over novels that I haven't seen in ages. It's like meeting up with my best and oldest friends. Pure giddiness. Finally, I have my things about me.
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A quilt I made will hang above the stereo.
I have another quilt planned for the opposite wall. |
Last week, my son had some friends over, and they were playing up in the library. (Kids seem to gravitate to that space.) Anyway, one of them came bounding excitedly into the kitchen. Breathlessly he asked me, "Do you know that you have
magic stairs?!"
It was such a wonderful way to describe, I thought, those twisty stairs climbing up to my happy space. All I could say in reply was, "Yes, yes, I do."
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| Our magic stairs. |
