that Paradise will be a kind of library.” Jorge Luis Borges
***
I love reading..
I love books.. I love crafting ..
but I don’t like my library..
I didn’t..
Three laminate freestanding bookcases aligned by the wall..this is not the library of my dreams..
The wall was 37 cm wider than the bookshelves were.. without a much needed side support and loaded with books they were kind of shaky.
The covers of my books were all shades of all colours and when I arranged them in alphabetical order .. a whole wall of mismatched colours looked totally chaotic.. As a bonus some of them were discoloured or too worn out to be on the show.. there were even some eaten by the parakeet we once owned .. intellectual pets are my fav..
To improve the view.. I had tried to arrange my books by colour.. and then I couldn’t find any particular one when I needed it immediately..
I tried to add accessories and pictures with no satisfying result.. because each time I tried to pull a book or to dust.. all of them started to shake and my accessories were falling.. sometimes ending on my head =/..
I once saw a library in a french decoration magazine.. it was a wall to wall simple bookshelf system.. all the books were covered with white paper and the titles and authors handwritten on the back.. minimalistic.. simple and beautiful..
Then I started noticing around the blogland some accessories made from old book pages .. I opened a folder and started to save many of these creative inspiring bookcrafting pictures..
Finally I knew what I had to do.. a bookpage covered library .. and covered books.. that would be perfect for me..
FİRST WEEK SUNDAY_MONDAY
I already had the material in the basement.. a friend gave me some pocket books..old detective novels she found in her attic.. the pages were fragile and were falling apart.. I have started to glue them on randomly using wallpaper glue trying to get rid of air bubbles using a plastic card.. the pages were so fragile that they tore down .. so I had to use my fingers to squeeze out the bubles..
I choose chapter numbers at the top of each unit .. ten eleven and twelwe..don’t ask me why =P.. I brushed a generous amount of glue all over.. when the shelves were totally dry.. which is after 24 hours .. I applied two coats of acrylic varnish to protect the shelves from wear and tear.. and pushed them back at the wall where they used to be.. I measured the gap between the library and the wall..
TUESDAY
I had some old shelves in stock and I asked a handy friend to cut these at measure for me .. which he didn’t or couldn’t do until next thursday.. I mean ten days later..
In the mean time I have also covered an Ikea Fira box that fitted at the narrow space between the shelves.. and varnished..
THE SECOND WEEK .. SUNDAY AND ALL WEEK DAYS
I have had to deal with the garden because of a parasit alert.. had to take the cat to the veterinary.. had to beautify myself and go to my son’s graduation party.. I had to deal with many unwanted and unplanned facts of life.. and living in a house where every horizontal surface is loaded with books.. eight hundred something books ..
whenever I found time.. I was making simple fold-on covers from craft paper.. I poured myself some vine.. than choose a dvd.. uhmm many dvd’s.. and made the covers.. and wrote the author’s name and title of the books with my favorite en.. purple =) .. kids started to make fun of me.. the good part of it I was piling them back in alphabetical order..
THURSDAY..
I continued the book covering activity ..but as I got my shelves back.. I covered them .. and set them aside to dry..
FRIDAY.. MORNİNG .. varnished the new shelves before leaving for work..
EVENING.. happy as a puppy came home from work.. to finish this library.. an emergency occured.. and I had to go on a trip.. for the whole week-end..
THİRD WEEK..
Two pre-prommed dinners out.. one night of migraine and another reason I don’t even remember kept me back from finishing..
I am getting used to live with books around.. I am affraid to start to think “who needs a library anyway”..
THİRD WEEK.. SATURDAY..
As soon as I entered the house.. without even changing my clothes I started to fix the new shelves..
I planned to use shelf pins to place the new shelves .. shelf pins ( in the photo below) are made of a nail and a plastic part to create and antislip effect and extra weight bearing surface for the shelves..
I usually have this kind of things in my craft box.. but this special evening.. back from work and eager to finish my library I noticed I ran out of it.. no surprise.. =P
Small excuses cannot stop me when I am so motivated..
I used some short nails and some wooden beads from an old necklace.. to create my own shelf pins.. they worked okay.. no better they worked great.. because the beats were a shade of lilac.. all shades of purple lilac are my favorite colours..
I made one mistake though.. no .. two mistakes..
first I did not check if the gap was the same width all along the shelves.. so I discovered that the new shelves were perfect for the top but were too large for the bottom.. uneven floor problem =/..
The Ikea box looked smaller than the shelves and this lapse brought forward the second mistake.. I tried to push the box down to the bottom.. but as I tried to do this after I placed the two upper shelves and even some glass accessories over . I am rather enthousiastic =P.. Can you guess what happened..
Yes .. the box was sooo wide for the bottom.. and the two upper shelves and my accessories came crushing down..
A depressing moment for me.. I cleaned and throw away the broken glass containers from everywhere.. gathered the shells and pebbles and sea glasses that were everywhere.. applied dressing to some cuts and scratches over my hands and arm.. and then replaced the shelves and box at their place on the top….
perfectly placed.. but I was too tired to put the books back on the library..
SUNDAY..
I replaced the books.. I also have a notebook to keep the list of my books..I had already made it from an old book cover.. thanks to the tutorial I had seen at justsomethingimade blog.. a notebook covered inside an old bookcover ..(I will show it’s pictures on another post) I tried to keep listing while I ranged but couldn’t deal with all and delayed this for later and calmer evenings.. I finished covering the last books..
I have ranged my bookmark collection in one of the drawers.. thrown maps and info books from places I have visited in another one..
The bottom still needs some shelves but it will come in no time.. or a small chest of drawers will fit in there.. time will show..or maybe some other idea will come.. who knows??..
I have arranged the books in categories.. novels and stories.. memories and history.. women’s human wright.. arts and crafts and not-read ..
I made some labels to sign these categories..
FINALLY..
at the end of a month .. I have my books on shelves.. it seems funny to see the surfaces of my tables and dressers.. =P..
I also have prepared some vintage labels for some of my displays ..
I still have ideas.. some graphic art to display on the wall space over the library..
I even could make some foating book shelves from my old books.. and have to repair the cover of the “les miserables” in piece I bought sometimes ago..
This seems to be an ongoing everlasting project..
Does anybody else’s project take such a long time ??