Pictures?

Ooh, yes, piccies please :-)

Oh yes, definitely piccies please.

Plus - can I borrow your DH and SIL for a while? :-)

All of the above for me too !!!

I am green with envy.........:0)

Sorry, I'm technically challenged and don't know how to transmit pictures. I can tell you that I'm worn out from unpacking 19 boxes of books and putting them on the shelves, plus carrying some oversized ones from the bedroom and arranging them. Don't feel too sorry for me, though. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I can't lend DH or SIL out, either. Both heaved huge sighs of relief when their part was over.

I'm also afraid to click on the word bedroom that has turned green above.

Aren't those new green hyperlinks just so precious...not. It's a new way to advertise to us. Yuck. Although, I guess the site has to make its money some way.

Carolyn, you can never have too many bookshelves. Some years ago I employed a joiner to build a set of ceiling-height shelves on one side of a deep, just under 5ft wide chimney breast. In no time the 6 shelves were 'double parked' so I had a similar set put up on the other side of the chimney. They too are full and I would happily do the same again with the second fireplace if it were not for the DH protesting. For some private reason he is happy to store all his stuff in precarious piles on the floor. It is only when such a mountain of detritus (newspapers, catalogues, letters, circulars, blackened banana peels) reaches the top of his chair-arm that I take drastic action and order a total clear-out. It's either that or divorce. ;-)

Vee, maybe you have heard the remark that the Rev. Billy Graham's wife made when asked if she had ever considered divorce. She said, "Divorce, no; murder, yes."

Carolyn-Congrats on your new bookcases-They sound perfect! I have different bookshelves all over my home but there is never enough room for a busy reader. I always think it makes your home very cozy.

Veer-My husband did the same until I fell over his piles of junk and hurt myself. I insisted for safety reasons to NEVER have anything on the floor-even by a chair if there was a chance someone could get hurt. I ended up in the hospital because of the fall!

Carolyn, lucky you to have such abundant bookshelves and talented builders! We just remodeled our family room and actually tore out the small built-in bookshelves we had (long story, but actually good riddance). I've been promised a new bookcase eventually ... I think I'd better start looking now as most furniture purchases at my house take months to decide :)

Enjoy them!

DD and S-in-L are looking for their first house. We spent some time with them this weekend and they showed us some virtual tours of ones they might consider. "We thought bookshelves along these walls", "I'm pretty sure we could fit a bookshelf here and still get the door all the way open"...etc. Good to know their priorities are in the right order.

Cece, sounds like you trained her right!

The worst thing for me when downsizing to my present retirement village place was not being able to have more than one bookcase. I have filled it up already with reference books so some of my fiction books are shelved in a video cabinet. My daughter is storing others. I dare not buy any more books for myself but I am collecting children's books for GGD. I have been scouring the charity shops for pre-loved ones in good condition. The price of new books is dreadful! You would not believe how good and cheap these donated books are. Some are like new. I got a copy yesterday of "The Bear" by Raymond Briggs. It is in perfect condition with the dust jacket on and cost me 50cents. I have been putting them into a large book bag to drop off or be collected by my GD. We have always been a book-loving family for many generations and I am happy to pass on the tradition by supplying these treasures.

Congrats, Carolyn. What a joy to have books up on a shelf where you can reach up for one when you have the urge!

That would be "reach way up," Chris. Do you think a library ladder would be a little ostentatious?

A library ladder would be a fantasy come true, and what good is a fantasy that isn't ostentatious? I modestly used library steps for my 8' bookcases. Came in handy when I fell prey to a mattress salesman and suddenly had to climb into my bed as though I were a toddler. Do I have a "Princess and a Pea" fantasy, I wonder?

Ha! DH and I once spent a night in an old inn, and the bed was very high. There were no steps, and he had to help me up into it. Vertically challenged, here.

Carolyn, worse than climbing into a very high bed is getting down from it the next morning . . or if 'taken short' during the night having to abseil to the floor in the dark, clinging to the sheets . . . giving a whole new meaning to the Princess and the Pea. Have you ever slept in a 'fourposter'? I feel that with the curtains shut tight all night they must have been a breeding ground for heaven knows what germs. Of course our ancestors believed 'night air' was bad for you and slept in 'sealed in' rooms so didn't mind a fug . . .or several bodies to a bed. ;-)

It's so interesting the visual pitures one creates on the internet. Carolyn, I never thought of you as vertically challenged! I am only 155cm (about 5'1/2") and always think of others as taller than me.

And because Astro is in your name, I always see you as taller than average, AstroKath. I know your handle comes from your avocation, but my brain still snuck in that further bit, unsolicited.

Funny indeed, Astro, how we develop these ideas in our head. I just always assume that everyone is about my height (which is 5 ft 9 in) but I am tall so I don't know why I do this. However, I am shrinking as I found out in the doc's office the other day.

My mum is small - about five or six inches smaller than me. I got my dad's genes.

I win! I'm 4'11" and on Fosamax so I don't shrink due to bone loss. Both of my parents were small.

Several days ago while walking at the mall, a tall woman I didn't know said to me that she wished she were as short as I am. I assured her she wouldn't like it, giving examples such as not being able to find clothes that fit, etc.; but when I got to one pound looking like five on people of normal height, she quickly changed her mind.

It is simply not possible to have too many bookshelves. If you build them, the books will come. And while you are waiting, you can fill a couple of empty shelves with family photographs or a collection of something -- shells, vases, paperweights, what ever it is that you have on hand. But don't get too attached to keeping the placeholders there. In time those shelves will be needed for their true purpose.

Rosefolly