I just moved. The only time I don’t love how many books I own is when I’m moving. We ran out of boxes and had to come to the new house, stack books behind the woodburning stove in the dining room (so they’d be out of the way), and take the boxes to the old house and re-pack them. 120 boxes of books. And I’ve got a bad back.

I’m trying to find places in my new (smaller) home to put more bookshelves. But it sounds like you’re having the opposite problem. I want to second Veronica’s suggestion of planks and cinder blocks. My mom had a huge “board and brick” shelf set up in her living room for years - through all of my kids being babies and toddlers, and we never had any safety problems. I think the cinder blocks are heavy enough and sturdy enough to make it really non-tippable. I actually think it’s more sturdy and safer than the $29 shelves from Wal-mart.

I asked on freecycle and got a bookshelf, found two at a yard sale for 5 and 10 dollars, one in a thrift store and let people know we needed them and have been given a few. I still have books in boxes!

If you can find sturdy boxes, like fruit boxes, turn them on their side and use as temporary book shelves. Tops of dressers work for some too. I am not saying clutter them, just some books and stack some on the ends for book ends to hold the others up.

If you are like my husband, even though there is no room, he keeps going to half-price books and getting more. Right now it is computer books. everywhere!

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I’ll have to look next time I come over. We’ll figure out something!

Think outside the box. What are some areas in the house with a little extra space that you could utilize?

Books are classic. They look much better outside of a storage box! I’m sure you could find some spaces even in the bathroom or on the sill of a window.

From what I remember there is an empty closet across from the boys room upstairs that had empty cabinets? You could put some books in there.

Thats really the only suggestion I can think of. Or now that you have a kindle you could just switch to all e-books!

Love you,
Regina

If you don’t have money for shelves, you don’t. You could always try the college dorm room method of cinder blocks and planks, or milk crates, but those aren’t very kid safe. You could also look for and renovations going on in town that might be tossing shelves.

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Could you do a catalog and number system? List all your book titles in the computer, then put the box number for where to find that title. Time consuming, I know, but maybe a temporary solution until you can get the shelving you want.

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