My new bookcases

For a very long time I've wanted bookshelves in our living room. The room has always been very minimalist, with bare painted walls, which I do like but I felt that it wasn't very cosy. Ram is very into his home cinema, and so the living room also has to work around his speaker set up. 

A few weeks ago he decided that his speakers needed an upgrade, and much research was conducted into buying a new system. I wanted some nice small speakers on the walls with as few wires as possible, but he talked me round and we ended up with new freestanding speakers that are rather larger than I really would have liked.

So as a compromise we agreed that we would install some bookshelves in the corner of the room and last week the Ikea delivery van brought us two new Billy bookcases!

 
Previously I had all my books on an ancient Billy bookcase in my study, as well as an overflow in one of our top rooms. I've always been quite good at passing on books when I've finished with them, so despite being a prolific reader I don't feel that I own that many books. But recently I've been on a few book buying sprees, and I'm enjoying having access to some of the books that I've read in the past and really enjoyed, so I want to make sure that I have room for expansion.

I had a lovely time setting up my new bookshelves, I have different areas for older books, fiction paperbacks (in alphabetical order of course), fiction hardback, non-fiction in different categories like organisation, wellbeing, language and linguistics and travel, as well as a section for the sheet music that was overflowing from the box next to the piano. The majority of my books are now stored here, I've just kept a rainbow shelf of Ladybird books and a few battered children's books in my study.

As you can see there is plenty of space to add new books, and with the freed up space on the old bookshelves in my study I'm hoping that I'm sorted for many years to come. I think that it makes the room look so much more homely and I love sitting on the sofa and admiring my book collection!