Sneak peek – beef up your bookcase

I’ve been whittling away at my bookshelves casually for a couple of months now. I posted about my need to revamp my bookshelves (here), and I finally got my bookshelves looking just right. For me. Why, do you ask, does it matter? Because I have OCD when it comes to design and neatness and I don’t feel complete until my apartment has been meddled with on a daily basis. Having unachievable goals helps a lot.

These are a couple tasters of  some of my favorite parts of my shelves. Pretty prettiness. Offish pictures will be up later this week. After I actually take them …

Blackboard wall – Halloween

Last weekend we got in the mood for Halloween by a festival of the Paranormal Activities trilogy. I had 30 minutes to draw something Halloweeny for our chalkboard wall beforehand, and this is what I came up with. Not ground breaking. I really wanted to draw an unholy amount of ghouls, skeletons, and zombies, but didn’t have the time. So I drew some massive spider webs in stead. I’ve already invested some serious thought into my Christmas wall – I know, too soon.
I hope you have a happy and safe Halloween this weekend! I hope you’re being something scary. I never understand when people dress as cute things {children are exempt from this statement}. It’s Halloween for god sake. 

My inner librarian has OCD

I’m working on beefing up my bookshelves at the moment. When you’re like me and are graced with a touch of OCD, reorganizing things happens on a regular basis. I’ve been reorganizing my bookshelves a lot recently and I’ve also come across a lot of images which are giving me lots of inspiration. 

“There are many ways you can choose to arrange your books: by size, by color, by number of pages, by subject, by your favorite titles, by publisher, by publication date, by date you received your book, or by your favorite genre and then by author {fiction} …” – How To Organize Books

I have quite a lot of books – mostly hardback {there’s something so much nicer about a hardback} so I’m looking to arrange or offset them in a way that shows off our collection.

This first image is full of what I want. A contrast between light and dark, and that dusty purple – I’m really into that shade at the moment. Coincidentally, I’m also working on a painting to hang in front of my bookshelves in a similar way to this one – aesthetically, as well as to hide some unsightly DVD’s behind it. Sneaky. I do like the minimal amount of books/magazines in the background, but in reality I have a ton of them so there’s no escaping for us. 
I do like the chaotic side of stacking books and magazines. Again, it contrasts with the clean lines of the shelves and surrounding objects in the image on the left. Then again, on the right there’s thought and order to how everything is arranged. Here the emphasis is not strictly on the books or magazines themselves. They’re mixed in with other objects. 

Those shelves and more importantly the arrangement. I really like how everything at first glimpse looks a bit reckless  but on closer inspection is tidy and carefully thought out. Plus, that Eames chair … 
If I wasn’t so blindingly afraid of using such vibrant colors in my own home, I would tackle something like this. But I think my guy would be too worried of putting a book back in the wrong place. Hell hath no fury …

This in a way is what I have at the moment – everything organized by height. I do like this monochromatic style of organizing and the different levels of shelving. Everything has a place.
Image sources 1, 2, 3, 45 and 6.