Welcome to week 7 of my 52 Things in 52 Weeks Declutter Challenge. If you haven’t signed up yet, join me today and remove all those things in your home you no longer need or use.
We all dream of having that perfectly clean and tidy home. What you don’t realise, is that most of the mess around your house is just clutter that can be easily sorted and tidied up. Most homes have piles of clothes lying around, too many little bits and pieces like batteries, magazines, kids toys and lots of paperwork sitting on top of shelves, and way too many books. A good declutter can be an easy task, as long as you don’t let the idea of how much you have to do, overwhelm you. Take it one section at a time and get decluttering.
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Decluttering Task #7
Books and Bookshelves
How many books would you say you own? Are you an owner of an excessive book collection that takes up so much space around the house, that you don’t even know how many books you actually have? Maybe you’re a lover of romance novels and just can’t let go of all those books with Fabio on the covers, or you can’t say no to a cookbook when you see one, because you want to be a Masterchef. I myself don’t have time to read, but cookbooks are definitely my weakness and I’ve had to purge many over the years to save on space at home. Whatever books are your weakness, remember to ask yourself “do I need this book?”, before you continue to ignore it sitting on your shelf or on top of other clutter around the home. With just a few steps, I’m going to show you how to declutter your bookshelves and get rid of all those books that you will either never read again or never even start.
TODAY’S TASK: DECLUTTER YOUR BOOK COLLECTION AND BOOKSHELVES AND PURGE ALL BOOKS THAT YOU NO LONGER NEED.
Note: My definition of purge – sell, donate, repurpose or throw away items as you see fit!!
- Go through your entire book collection
- Keep your favourites and ones that you cannot part with
- Donate ones for purging to a second-hand book store or sell eBay etc
- Minimise your cookbooks and only keep ones you actually cook from
- Rearrange your bookshelves with the books you’re keeping and consider organising them in alphabetical order for easy access.
- Store cookbooks together, textbooks together etc.
My son is super clever and has set up his favourite books on a bookshelf, among his favourite things. This way he only keeps the books and items that mean the most to him, and doesn’t have excess clutter hanging around his room.
SEPARATE AREAS IN YOUR HOME
If you have lots of books just lying around the house, it’s most likely that you really don’t have a proper bookshelf sorted or even a few cubby areas for books and other items like cookbooks and folders, where you can store everything properly. What will help you, is to separate some areas in your home so that your books will always have a place where they can be stored and returned to. Doing this will help you to stick to returning the books to the appropriate spots, and stop them lying around all over the place.
READ MORE: Ideas for an Organised Dream Home
GREAT BOOKSHELF STORAGE IDEAS
Using your space at home wisely is the best way to get more out of your home and your decor. When buying bookshelves, consider the space you have to work with and what will actually fit into the spaces you want to add shelves to. Also, consider the colour scheme you’re going to use and the shape of your area. Measure everything up so that you either purchase or build the right size of shelving.
READ MORE: Books on Bookshelf Design Ideas
UNIQUELY DESIGNED BOOKSHELVING
Another great way to help you to purge unnecessary books is to not only organise book storage spaces where to keep them, but you could get a bit creative with your bookshelves and how you store them in your home. You can create some wonderful designs for your book shelving by just using your imagination, having someone who knows how to use some tools and making them, or buying from an artistic bookshelf designer. Turn your book collection into a work of art with some of these creative and beautiful ideas.
Look at this clever design shown in Home Ideas for example. Using an old tree log as the frame for the bookshelf, and then creating shelves for the actual books is such an intricate and super clever idea.
image credit Home Ideas
Another fabulous design that I found on Pinterest is this incredible bookshelf that captures your eye, due to the design holding the books on an angle. There is something so pleasing about seeing furniture lines not coinciding with the norm. It kind of makes you feel a little fun and cooky from it. I like it!!
image credit Pinterest
Wow and check this design out from Etsy by KufaDesigns. I get dizzy just looking at it but it definitely has the wow factor to it. A conversation starter for sure, and a very artistic way to display your favourite books.
image credit KufaDesigns
