My two favorite seasons are spring and fall. I love the newness of life, warm sunshine and beautiful flowers of spring. But I also really love the crispness of fall after a hot summer. There is just something about cool breezes, warm sweaters, comfort foods, and the colors of fall that make my heart sing. It also makes me want to clean house. Yep, that’s right. I like to tidy my nest in preparation of cold, winter days. I find it hard to be motivated when it’s too hot or too cold. But I get excited about the changing seasons and want my home to reflect feelings of peace, warmth, and comfort.
This fall we started in the kids rooms. They are getting older and really starting to appreciate their own space. So I’ve been helping them get organized and decorate their rooms a little. Recently we purchased new bedding for them. My daughter went with zebra print to match a few of her accessories in her room. My son went with a green camouflage print to reflect his playful side. Now we are organizing our bookcases and closet space. Last time I showed you a sneak peek of my son’s special space. We aren’t quite finished with that yet. But I did want to share how my daughter’s bookcase turned out.
She is very much a bookworm and I couldn’t be more proud that reading is one of her favorite hobbies. However she needed help. Her bookcase was overflowing. There were books from years past still on the shelves and she had trouble finding what she wanted. Besides reading she also loves to keep collections of things. So it is no surprise that she has collections of various books: American Girl, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, horse books, cat books, craft books… You get the idea! So I decided to help her organize by subject.
Without further ado, here are the before and after pictures:
Besides her books, she needed storage for a few of her collectible toys. We moved her pink/white baskets to the top shelf to hold her Littlest Pet Shop and Polly Pocket toys. On the next shelf we decided to place books in different directions to keep it interesting to the eye. I love her brown cover classic books topped with a wooden “G” to personalize.
She couldn’t part with certain collections and I didn’t want to ask her too. But we needed a way to keep them neat yet find a way to make them fit. Standard size plastic shoe boxes seemed like the perfect way to do that. They fit neatly on her shelves without hanging over the edges. Bonus – we could label them! So on the third and fifth shelves we added labels for “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”, “Classics”, “American Girl” and “Horse Books.” She also loves craft books so we decided to stack them on their sides.
The fourth shelf displays a collectible A-frame Little People house with accessories and a Barbie convertible car from the 80’s. [It belonged to me!]
The bottom shelf is a little hard to see. We decided to make tabs to extend between the books to make the different types of books on that shelf easier to find. For the bookend tabs we used recycled cereal boxes and washi tape. Since the bottom, back corner was the hardest to reach, I placed a horse next to the box to remind her what was there. 🙂
[Click on the picture for a better view.]
Anyone else doing some fall cleaning?
Simplicity 
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