Monday Motivation: Clean off your bookshelves

I love books. Books are my friends. I have a very difficult time weeding out books and heaven forbid - getting rid of some. But, if I didn't purge some books every few months, I'd be overrun by them.

I was blessed to have several built-in bookshelves in our home when we purchased it. Along with our entertainment/wall unit, I'm good for storage. Many homes I go into have no bookshelves - at all. Books are piled up everywhere. The homeowner feels overwhelmed and their beloved books are a big part of the problem.

I'm going to walk you through, step-by-step, how to organize your book shelves.

1. Collect all of your books from all of your rooms. You'll have no idea how many books you have until you collect them all in one place.

2. Sort books by category. Here are a few suggestions:

- spiritual (bibles, commentaries, workbooks, devotional etc.)

- fiction (this includes paperbacks and hard cover)

- home and garden (how-to books, cookbooks, gardening, bird watching, decorating etc.)

- biography and non-fiction inspiration

- reference (some reference may be with other categories)

- children's books

3. Go through each category of books. Decide which books you will keep and which you will donate to charity. You might even have to make a pile of books that need to be returned to their rightful owner(s).

4. Of those books you are keeping, decide where you would like to store them. Do you want your cookbooks in the kitchen? Do you want your spiritual books in your office where you study? Do you want children's books in your family room or in the children's rooms? There is no right or wrong place for books as long as they are stored so you can access them as needed.

5. If you are storing most books on one large shelving unit, you might want to separate them by category. I use books stacked on their sides to divide sections of books. I also add small framed art pieces and family treasures.

This is the built in bookshelf under my stairwell. I have most of our books stored here. It's not the most attractive arrangement, but it's very functional. I can find any book I need in a matter of seconds. I even have a basket of veggie seeds next to the gardening section because that's where I store my garden notebook.

6. If you have emptied bookshelves to get them organized, be sure to clean them before you restock them. Some of your books may need to be cleaned too. I just usually vacuum the books and the shelves with a vacuum brush attachment and then wipe down the shelves with a damp cloth. You might even find some money! One house I was staging had money stored in one of those book vault contraptions. The family didn't even remember it was there. They were very excited.

Monday Motivation One Year Ago:

Organizing Nonessential Papers