A Deranged Bookcase

For too many months, my bookcase in our apartment has looked like this:

It was a complete mess. The boxes that formerly housed my DVDs had empty spaces where discs that should have been in them were instead strewn elsewhere throughout the bookcase. Notebooks and textbooks were shoved in wherever they would fit. The picture of my family was turned sideways and the bottom shelf was a heap of Christmas lights and a broken printer. Other random things were piled on either side of the bookcase.

I hated that it was so messy but I had never taken the time to re-arrange it. The recent addition of three new decor pieces, however, gave me the motivation I needed to re-organize the shelves and make it more functional.

The ampersand and hourglass are both recent purchases on steep discount from Kohl's. I don't know why, but I'm obsessed with ampersands! I think they're so beautiful, and I love the combination of graceful curves and straight lines. An hourglass is something I've wanted for a very long time, so when I was these two items on sale, I simply had to purchase them. The brown glazed bud vase was a gift from my sister and brother-in-law; it's a one-of-a-kind piece and I love it! It's very pretty, the picture doesn't do it justice.

In re-arranging the bookcase, my goal was to combine beauty and function, and this was the result:

Well, at least on the top two shelves of the bookcase. I'm fairly happy with how this portion of the reorganizing came out. All of my hardback and most treasured books are on the top shelf while the second shelf houses some of my books from last semester along with some just-for-pleasure books, as well as all my "religious" books, an album, and two recipe books. And the top of the bookcase is much more neat and organized now - the DVDs and puzzles belong to my roommates and the basket holds my flute along with extra yarn and needles. Here's how the whole bookcase looks:

I am not very pleased with the new arrangement. I think the bookcase looked more balanced when the white boxes and magazine holders were up higher and grouped together. Unfortunately, once I got to this point and realized that I wasn't happy with how it turned out, I was too tired of shuffling things around to go back and undo it. Additionally, since I added two new magazine holders, there is no way to fit all of the white things on one shelf. At some point in the future (preferably before the semester ends!), I will re-arrange everything with a hopefully more balanced outcome.