I have been collecting random antique children’s books here and there over the past couple years and realized I just don’t have space for them, thus creating Chicken & Bear Books, my new Etsy shop for vintage children’s books.
As noted in my previous post my studio is very small, which you can imagine reflects the size of my house as well. Most of my books (some 30 boxes mostly adult, YA, and middle grade) went into storage when I moved into this house. It was very hard to part with them. All I have left in the house are the library books I am currently reading and my collection of children’s picture books. Upon moving I pleaded that those were the ones I needed the most and therefore could not live without, needless to say I won my case. I am now accountable for moving all the boxes full of books every time we move, but to me it’s definitely worth it.
After posting my new shop yesterday, I got to thinking about home libraries and what people do with all their books, especially in small spaces. I have a tenancy to let books just pile up around my nightstand, creating rather treacherous mountains to skirt around while crawling out of bed in the morning…leading to many stubbed toes and tumbles. But yet I won’t move them. There is comfort in their surrounding. When I lived in Boston, the piles where everywhere, spilling off of shelves, drawers, and stacked high against the wall. Thankfully for my feet I have scaled back a bit.
I recently read an article about the twenty best home libraries, most of which were owned by celebrities of course. Because who else has the money to have a whole room devoted to their books with those amazing ladders you see at Strand Books? It made me wonder about other book lover’s libraries. What do they look like? Do they sort them alphabetically like I do? Do they break them down in to sections: picture book, YA, adult, middle grade, non-ficition and so on? Or are the books just piled together at random? Are their comfy chairs to sit in? I have friends who live in New York who say that if they buy a new book they have to get rid of an old one to make room. Space is obviously a very precious thing in New York so this is understandable however tragic it may sound to me.
Hopefully, Chicken & Bear Books will help find the perfect home for all of my vintage books that need one. Perhaps some fabulous home library somewhere…
To visit Chicken & Bear Books click on the link below:
Anyone out there with a library they have created in some corner of their home? I would love to hear about it.
