Soooo cute, inventive, creative & generous! Well done!

Very cute AND generous!

What a neat take on the LFL idea!

What a clever and creative solution to your surplus and congrats on being able to let go of your cookbooks! I'm not there yet, but need to be. Keep us posted on how quickly the LFL emptys.

That's so awesome. What a good idea. I need to weed my cookbooks, too. I think I'll take some to the Little Free Library near my kids. No one would ever see them if I put one where I live, lol.

What a clever upcycling project. I turned most of my cookbook collection over to the re-sell shop in June. Over the past 10 years, I’ve gone from having 150 book cartons of books down to the number that fit on two small shelves. So much is available in digital form now that I don’t need to carry around the actual hardcovers. I’ll probably miss a few of them, but I can always buy one again if I absolutely can’t live without that particular title. I did keep one fiction series that is not available digitally.

Great idea! I rarely open a cookbook anymore. So much easier to Google.

What a great idea! (I see you too are an SF fan :-D). There's a LFL in the street behind ours in the city unit we own.

I have been thinking about hoarding and hoarders for some years now.

My dad is a terrible hoarder. He filled multiple storage units, containers, and his California house with stuff. It made his wife miserable during the last years of her life. I finally got the stuff out of his house, except for his three car garage that was crammed full until he moved out. Then I rented an entire building - 4000 sq ft - and got all his stuff moved there, at least all the stuff I know about, I think he’s still secretly paying for storage in California. It cost me $10,000 a year in rent to store his stuff, until this year when I finally made him sign the lease and pay for it.

He lives with me now. When he first arrived he’d go to thrift stores and garage sales and return with more stuff that he needed help to carry upstairs and then couldn’t fit in his room. Books, speakers, receivers, tools, even chairs. We had many fights about why he is forbidden to bring more stuff into my house, stop putting stuff in the garage, putting stuff in the hallway outside of his room is not the same as putting it in his room, and no I will not carry that upstairs for you.

So he started going to Costco and bringing back ridiculous amounts of food, filling my refrigerator and freezer, the refrigerator in his room, and piled up in that room which started to smell awful. More fights about why he is forbidden to buy more food than he will eat in a few days, can’t pretend it is a ”gift”, and no he cannot have multiple refrigerators in his room.

Now he doesn’t drive, so he’s mostly stopped accumulating stuff or food, except every now and then he’ll want to order some small appliance or cooking gadget “for the house”. I’ve figured out that if I keep suggesting he do more research on the models and brands and specifications, eventually he gets overwhelmed and gives up.

So naturally I have been watching myself for signs of hoarding. Heredity is a thing.

To date, I think that I have too much of certain kinds of stuff, but am not exhibiting the signs of an actual hoarder.

(Which are, in case you’re interested, similar to those of a drug addict or alcoholic: lying, cheating, concealing, using others, treating friends and family and relationships and health all secondary to getting more stuff, more drugs, or more alcohol. Hoarders eventually lose everyone, and I now understand how.)

However, the casual visitor to our house might be forgiven for thinking that the inhabitants may be unwittingly in a state of ”pre-hoarding“, as he stands amongst the piles of books or descends to the basement which looks like the last scene of ”Raiders of The Lost Ark” . . .

So we are trying to get rid of stuff. Starting slow - clothes, books.

Getting rid of stuff is very hard. Logistically, that is. The fact is that much of what fills our houses, basements, and garages is not wanted by anyone. You can’t sell a tenth of it, Goodwill doesn’t want most of it, at least half of it needs to be tossed away but your conscience recoils at the shame of waste and landfilling. I have friends who did manage to clear out most of their stuff via donating, but it was practically a part time job for months and months.

One day, I’m going to organize my block and rent a big dumpster. Together, we’ll overcome our stuff. Until then, our Little Free Library will help with a daily drip of stuff leaving little by little.

Well done LFL build. I frequent several in my town and always feel guilty if I want more books than I have extras to leave behind. Now I can tell myself the owner wants to get rid of the books and I am helping. A store nearby used to have a shelf in the back that was LFL only for cookbooks. I loved the idea until the day the store closed.

If someone 'loans' me a current novel and doesn't want it back I pass it along to the public library to put on the $1.00/book shelf.

Absolutely, the LFL owner wants to see books go away. Unless the shelves are totally bare, I guess. You are definitely doing them a favor.

Here are the bookmarks, DD picked a couple dozen quotes and I printed cardstock on my office copier.

We’ll see if the openings in the roof are a problem come winter. I may have to add flashing and other rain protection.

I do hope it doesn’t get vandalized.

Perish the thought! i love that your daughter took the project to the nth degree. The painting is awesome. Sure to attract the casual bibliophile. But shouldn't you announce the cookbooks?

My grandfather's house was like that with the books. He founded a library and got a whole bunch out at once. Grandmother was satisfied at any rate.

We are going to hang a sign from the lower edge of the cabinet with “Takeaway Books” to assure passerby that this is indeed a LFL. All other LFLs I’ve seen have transparent doors so you can see the books. We are concerned that people won’t figure it out.

Several of our neighbors have similar structures, and I should start donating there. My fear is that no one will want the books and that they will just take up space.

I don't think you should worry, Whoever is overseeing it probably clears unused/taken items after a while and donates them elsewhere.

john, your post about the difficulty of getting rid of stuff is spot on! No one wants it, no one needs it, and most people have way too much of their own excess stuff. You can hardly give it away! Our world is suffocating in all of this stuff, and most of it is in not even bio degradable and will be around for what , essentially, will be forever! Frightening, very frightening!

On the subject of books.... we did a big dump of all books about two years ago and it was a very good thing. I now have only two cookbooks and they are more for nostalgia and time honored, rather than use. I dont need a recipie to cook or bake and never use them. If something is unfamiliar, there is always more than you want to ever know on the internet.

If find both books and magazines to be not much interest or use anymore. The kids will just trash them when you are no longer in control. So, why not just deal with them while you still can?

We have begun the process of purging as we will be looking to downsize in the next couple of years. I am sure we could fill a dumpster all by ourselves between the house, my husband's shop and the barn (which has not seen an animal in over 40 years.) We donate what we can, put other things on the family group text for nieces and nephews just starting out and sell a few things on Marketplace. It is an arduous task for sure but it does feel good.

On books, I do plan to still keep a good amount of books at home. A very large percentage of books are neither still in print nor available online. Most people still prefer print books to e-books.

More emotionally, books are like a map of your life. Where you’ve traveled, what you’ve cooked, what you’ve done, what you have been interested in, are all captured in what you read, if you’re a reader. Look at someone’s bookshelf and see ”Secrets of Solo Racing”, ”Between Meals: An Appetite For Paris”, ”Sex, Death, and Flyfishing”, and “Simple Food”, then you have a scintilla of the start of a clue about who they are, or used to be, but who we are is mostly who we used to be. (On the other hand, if his books are all on dress-making and taxidermy and skin care, then best make your excuses.)

What I’m doing is getting rid of the books that no longer have any connection, even nostalgic, to the now me.

I think of it like clothes: purging is good but you still need something to wear.

If you really want to get rid of a lot, hire a whole house cleanout service or estate sale company. Take time to find one that is highly recommended in your area. I probably could have made a few thousand selling my stuff piecemeal on eBay, but it was worth the loss to me to move on in a short period of time. The company took everything I didn’t want and gave me a tiny check, but if you are willing to take a bit more time, they could hold several estate sales for you.

Love the LFL! Speaking of hoarding, I am hoarding the materials to make one, but I haven't yet had time to find someone to do it. I have a possible contact . . . I want one for our community center and then eventually one for my yard. I have a spot on the corner of our lot, where folks stop and wait for their kids to get off the bus. I'm hoping a little bench and library might encourage them to walk down and read while waiting instead of sitting parked in their cars. I'm still waiting and waiting for my tree guy to come and cut down the dying blue spruce that is in the spot first. Been waiting two years. Thought the power company was going to do it but instead they hacked off half of it . . . it just looks awful. But a gal can dream. I keep seeing pictures of these cute gazebos made out of old doors. Can't get my carpenter hubs excited about such a project. It's not his idea of fun . . .

Here's a photo I saved of my dream bench

Here's my LFL spot at the community center. Butterfly garden I just finished installing in the foreground. The spot for the LFL is back by the benches. To keep it food related, we are almost done with the community kitchen so we can have some food activities. Next week we are having a tea party to celebrate the completion of most of our garden beds. We got a grant to install a whole butterfly planting area and that center bed was pretty much the last part. We're planning on international snacks representing our cultures, including Yemeni, Mexican and I'm doing my Jewish Dutch apple cake. I grew up knowing it as Dutch apple cake and then I saw it in a Philadelphia bakery listed as "Jewish apple cake." Who knew. But since I'm both, it's all good!

Lpink, you should have your book nook! So what if hubs doesn’t want to build one - remind him who is to be obeyed! Seriously, make his life a living hell until you get what you want. That’s what happens to me - he’ll survive, I do :-)

In our house, no one bosses anyone, and we do not have a hierarchy. Neither of us would be able to live with that. If we want the other one to do something, we ask politely and are willing to accept "No" as an answer.

We both make each other's lives as pleasant and peaceful as possible and live in harmony.

Do you never do anything nice for your husband? You might remind him of that.

He's joking, big time joking. I got it. Playing those kinds of games in real life, (not in a joke) obviously not a good idea. Anyone who knows John and his wife know that they do a whole lot of things on both sides and with the kids. Quite the group IRL!!

Our LFL got off to a slow start. Day one, no book taken. Day two, no book. Day three . . . is it possible that passer-by don’t realize it is a little free library? We hung a sign.

And then it was Greekfest. That is the three day food fest at the Greek church a block away, which draws the entire city, it feels like, for roast lamb, dolmas, shwarma, and assorted Greek fun and games. Our quiet neighborhood fills up with revelers walking to and from their cars parked in every bit of curb, from Friday to Sunday it’s like Broadway here. Typically, the leaves also start falling and rain follows. Greekfest marks the flowering of fall and the first hint of the coming winter. Along with thousands of people walking by our house, and now our LFL.

Whether it was the sign or Greekfest that broke the drought, who knows, but books have been flying off our shelves. I’ve had to re-stock again and again. Naturally, the kids’ books have been popular, as well as genre fiction (sci-fi and mystery, mostly), but non-fiction has moved and so has literature. Books that I worried might never find takers, have; like ”Miss Manners Guide To Excruciatingly Correct Behavior”. Although, books that I’d think would have gone, have not; like ”The Naked And The Dead”. Neither cookbook in there has found a new home, but they are good ones and I’m hopeful: ” The Silver Palate Cookbook” and “Cuisine Rapide”. Like many cookbooks, those are rather large, and have to lay flat on the bottom shelf, which may reduce their visibility. I have also had to re-stock the trinkets: toy cars, playing cards, cocktail umbrellas, random stickers, and so on.

Greekfest is over and traffic at the LFL will slow, but I’m no longer worried that no-one will ever take the books. We have boxes and boxes more ready to be placed on the shelves - I estimate maybe a year’s worth of inventory. Persons unknown have even contributed a couple of books. I think I will put together a light that turns on when the doors are opened, to help people browse during the dark winter months.

I belong to the LFL facebook group. It's actually a national organization and you can register your library. Fun group, they post very cool photos. https://littlefreelibrary.org/

Mine probably won't be up and running until next year, due to winter coming and the Center isn't open yet but should be by Christmas. Meanwhile I can live vicariously through yours!

I have thinned my cookbooks but I could never get them down to 1 shelf. I like to curl up with them and flip through the pages for ideas. I also have older cookbooks and then A LOT of baking and pastry books.

There have been a few occasions that the library or secondhand store have gotten a glut of really good cookbooks. I can't but help wonder if someone passed away and this was their collection. So, while I'll continue to get rid of a few here or there, I'll always have too many and hope when my kids take the boxes in to donate someone like me will come across them and be very excited to take them home.

“He's joking”

Notice there is a SWMBO but not a HWMBO. I do feel rather hoodwinked because 30 years ago she insisted on eliminating the “obey” part from our wedding vows, yet here I am :-)