the bookshelf project.

I’m discovering that the older I get the more “minimal” I want our living space. Which is strange because I definitely don’t define myself as a minimalist when I comes to decor (that word conjures visions of sleek, monochrome, zen-like loft apartments with a single bamboo plant), but more and more I feel like clutter in my home — whether its from piles of papers or too many knick knacks or too much furniture — makes my skin itch.

David is breathing a sigh of relief at this, because our whole marriage he’s tried to tell me that “less is more” (except when it came to the unframed college posters he wanted to hang in our first home).

Lately I’ve been having that itchy feeling about our living room, more specifically about our bookcases. We’ve always wanted big, tall bookcases — mostly just because we need a place to keep our books. But also because we feel like they add color and character to our home, and say a lot about what we love as a family.

But for awhile now our bookshelves have been stressing me out.

So Saturday while David was working all day I did something really drastic — I organized our books by color.

I got the inspiration from this Apartment Therapy post.

The project took hours and hours. Because we have so. many. books. Does that sound like I’m bragging? I promise I’m not. I think (like with any collection) there are “cool” bookish people, and then there are “borderline-scary” bookish people, and we definitely fall into the latter category (when you have so many books that those displayed are just the tip of the iceberg — books are also stashed in your cabinets and china hutch and linen closet — then that is a problem).

What if when David and I are old we seem normal on the outside, but it turns out we are book hoarders? What if our grandkids can’t even walk through our living room to come check on us because of the mazes and mazes of books? I worry about this.

So on Saturday I got to work and there was dust flying and teetering stacks all over the living room and about a hundred nonstop questions from Amie, and in the middle of the afternoon my sister-in-law came to rescue us.

I had started my project but I couldn’t carry out the idea that was in my head. I was stuck. Enter Shari, who’s got a great eye and immediately whipped me into shape and made it all look better (I think it helped that I presented her with a slice of chocolate cake).

You’ll be relieved to hear that I set aside a very big pile of books To Be Purged (for instance, do we really need not one but two copies of the Quran?).

I also found my Kindle! Which has been lost for months. And was able to use a gift card someone gave me (was that a helpful hint, perhaps?).

Finally but perhaps most importantly I was reminded that we really have to stop acquiring books. We’ve toned it way down in recent years. But still. I think we should instill a rule that no book comes permanently into our home unless another one leaves (the jury is still out on whether David agrees with this).

Anyway. After the whole ordeal I felt about one hundred percent better about our living room, without spending a dime.

It turns out less really is more. That’s a recurring tip from design pros: edit, edit, edit. If you want to draw attention to the nice things you have, you need space for them to stand out.

For instance my dad turns really beautiful wooden bowls and I’ve been wanting to find a better way to display them in our home. Now instead of crammed in between stacks of books they have their own place. And that pottery jug that remains one of my favorite pieces from South Asia because it was the first pretty thing I bought for our home.

The best part was that David came home Saturday night and absolutely loved the bookshelves. We both agree that the whole room feels much more peaceful.

Now if I can just do something about the piles of books on the floor of the school room.