And yet I never do. No matter how many times I organise my shelves I just can't do it by colour. The first is that my OCD simply cannot handle having my series separated or authors not grouped together. I used to shelve by genre, then within that, alphabetically. Then there's the issue that I just don't have enough shelf space to do the colouring properly so that they all display nicely. I'd also have so many issues with figuring out shades of colour and where to put particular books.
In my latest bookshelf organisation though, I did something completely different and went against my OCD of keeping all series and authors together: I separated my shelves by read and TBR *le gasp* for those of you who don't know, I have 2 bookshelves:
1) A white one that is newer, it's about 1/3 the size of my other one
2) My black one that's got cubes on the end and takes up half a wall, the majority of my books go here
In a failing attempt to tackle my TBR I thought it'd be wise to put all the books I've read together and those I haven't read separately. Kat's suggestion was that having my series separated (those series I haven't finished) would motivate me to finish the series off!
It's somewhat working. I've put all my read paperbacks on the white shelf and all my read hardbacks at the bottom of my black shelf (I'm honestly scared the hardbacks would be too heavy for the white shelf which isn't as stable looking). I realised halfway through my shelving that I'm probably at the point where I've got more unread books than read... Yes... so now I can't even see half my TBR because they're stacked every which way. At the beginning I was doing it all alphabetically... then towards the end I just ran out of space and just went screw it.
My resultant shelves are chaos really. I haven't tried shelving my non-YA (which sit on my white shelf) and the cubes on the black shelf haven't been touched either. All these feature read and unread books.
I'm inclined to think that no matter how I shelve, it comes back to the root cause that I just don't have enough shelf space.
Some bookshelf pron for you.
Now tell me: how do YOU shelve?
If you guys want to share with me your shelving style and feature your bookshelves on my blog, send me an email (click the envelope in Links) and I'll give you more details (:
Lovely job, Jaz! So glad my suggestion is kind of working for you. So many books to organise! This must have taken you forever!
ReplyDeleteIt kills me that my series aren't together. I AM motivated to see them all together again haha. Thanks for the idea Kat!
DeleteAh, rearranging bookshelves! It's something I love doing whenever I've got the time :) I actually recently (AKA two weeks ago) did this, and am pretty pleased with how my "read" shelves (one favorites and one with the other books) look. My TBR shelf is ridiculous, but it just leaves me feeling motivated to plow through it ;)
ReplyDeleteOne of my shelves is organised my colour (those aren't series books though) and on my other bookshelf, I have all my FAVOURITE books as well as my TBR (which takes up two shelves...oops). But I'm constantly rearranging things just to shake it up, haha.
ReplyDeleteI have two shelves, and one of them is mostly by colour (with some patches of randomness) and the other shelf is basically randomly organised except that series are kept together. I never used to organise by colour, but then I was like you know what, it looks nice, and got over my "keeping series/authors together" obsession haha
ReplyDeleteYou're shelves are so beautiful and big! Because we recently moved house, my three bookshelves are in three different locations :O My new room is small, and I wanted a bigger study desk, so only my small 'read' bookshelf lives in it. It contains my favourite books and authors. My other 'read' shelf, which is twice the size, is in my sister's room. They're arranged by the 'whatever fits' method while still keeping series together XD
ReplyDeleteMy little TBR shelf is currently out at the house I live in while I'm at uni. It's organised by genre (sort of) to help facilitate my mood reading tendencies. During holidays I'll bring some books on that shelf back and sit them on the shelf beside my bed or as a pile on my desk or something.
Shelving by color looks fantastic, but it would never work for me. I need to have my series and books by the same author together. I used to have the same system: genre, alphabetical. Now it's more like: 'where do I have space?' haha. I really need some more bookshelves.
ReplyDeleteI love love love your shelves! AND ALL YOUR BOOOOOKSSS I used to do mine by series but after spending the first half of semester in lectures that bored me half to death, resulting in me just browsing instagram for two hours, I fell in love with colour coding. SO now I have a wall of books colour coded and they do me well, aesthetically. Practicality is another matter hahahaha
ReplyDeleteOMFG. This is the first thing I said when my eyes stumbled upon the beautiful woodwork of your shelves and the books that decorate it. GIRL. I MEAN, IF I WAKE UP TO THIS BEAUTY EVERY DAY, I WOULD DIE HAPPY. This is really motivating me to fix my shelves, though, although I still need books to fill the spaces. I only started collecting physical books recently (I used to only rely on Amazon purchases lolz)
ReplyDeleteFaye at The Social Potato
Man that's a lot of books! How cool would it be to have a library room?! I want one so bad.
ReplyDeleteBut anyway, yeah, I usually shelve by author and put the series' together. Shelving by colour would be so cool! Still, I would it so hard to find the books I needed haha.