Book Nerds' Paradise

We bought our little house before we had kids and it seemed so big. We've acquired a lot of stuff over the last 10 years and are constantly purging and finding space for the existing things. The most underused room in our house is the dining room. Truthfully, I never wanted a separate dining room, but the house we bought had one. Not a deal breaker by any means.

In the throws of rearranging.

We don't use our dining room 99% of the year except for coloring, computer work, and bill paying. We were in need of something functional.

I stumbled on a blog and fell in love with the idea of bookcase storage. And I've (secretly) pined for a library room. After much discussion and a little table version of musical chairs, we decided that bookcases could be a functional storage solution. So we moved the small round kitchen table into the dining room, the five-foot rectangular one into the kitchen, and the vision was complete.

We bought some black-brown bookcases and a secretary from Ikea. We purchased five large and two small bookcases, one which rounded out the unusable corner. We can purchase doors too, but decided to wait until we could better visualize the space. We strapped everything to the wall (a must in earthquake country) and started shelving.

We moved the new secretary to the living room and the table back into the dining room. I can't believe how much bigger the space looks and how much more functional it is. As soon as we placed all the books, the girls started playing library and bookstore. They even got out the pretend cash register and started accepting Dora credit cards.

When the time comes we can open up the table and serve 12. But for every day this is a dream come true.

Samantha also inherited the two oak bookcases that were previously overflowing in the living room. She's so excited to have her own library to fill and it's made for extra storage in her room.

I love the satisfaction of moving existing furniture and pictures around the house, finding new ways to use what we've got.