our bookshelf in the wall

I thought I would write about a favourite part of our house.  My bookshelf.  I love books, and read QUITE a lot.  To support this habit I need fodder - books. To support the books we need shelving.  Since I was small I have dreamed of a floor to ceiling bookshelf.  Now I am grown up I can make it happen in my house.

About six years ago we decided to make a bookshelf along our corridor.  I measured (well, Chris did) and decided it would be too squashy to walk down the hall with a bookshelf running along it.  So Chris decided to take off the wall sheeting to see what our studs (up bits) and noggins (across bits) looked like.  Wonderfully, the person who had built our house made an excellent hardwood frame straight and true.  All we (Chris) had to do was sand back the wood and add some shelves, custom height made to my books.

The shelves are re-used timber from the stage at Festival Hall.  There's Beatle spit on that wood.   Chris also put white backing on the shelves so we weren't looking at the back of a plasterboard wall.  We put in some little lights to jazz it up.

Even these shelves don't hold all of our books, we have another five bookshelves lurking around the house.

I like how anything I chuck on these shelves becomes arty and like it is supposed to be there - can you spot the wool balloon craft from a child, an empty beer bottle, a gyroscope, Nan's crystal, and a tiny lego piano on this shelf?  Proof I took the photo just how the shelf is today - without tidying it up.

I like that my house is a collection of found things that have meaning.  Not stylish, but comfortable and interesting.

Like our bookshelf in the wall.