Piper Nuelle

I love reading, so much so that I pretty much cannot go one week without buying a new book and adding it to my collection or to my TBR pile. But I have so many books now from new ones I plan to read, to one’s I have kept from my childhood and teenage years that my home office became a dumping ground and my bookcase just became a place of utter bookish chaos. So, I decided to take some time out (3 hours if I’m brutally honest with myself) to clean my study from top to bottom and sort out all my books, clean my bookcase and rearrange it, but also to declutter some books that I have read and won’t re-read, or just books that I didn’t enjoy and ended up being a DNF!

So here is my bookcase before I started. I actually emptied one shelf and then realised I could potentially make a blog post out of it lol, so one shelf is already clean and empty ready for re-stocking.

As you can see its very messy and disorganised, I have books piled up upon one another, no real order to them and to be honest I couldn’t tell what was TBR – ‘To Be Read’ and what was my DNF’s – ‘Did Not Finish’ and just my ‘I want to keep books for the memories’.

What I did was I just emptied my whole bookcase onto the floor, which might seem chaotic and counter productive to make so much mess, but it helps me to re-focus and to see what I actually have. I dusted down all the shelves (Which are indeed the ones you can get from IKEA and no I cannot remember the name of them lol) But they work great in my study.

My home office or study, or whatever it is you would call it is not huge, but it is big enough for me and my two book shelves. One is this cube type shelving system, the other one is a skinny, tall shelf which I actually don’t have books on but candles and pictures etc.

I started off by going through all my books, I looked them all over, read through the blurbs, decided which ones to keep and which ones to donate to charity. I bagged up the ones I no longer needed. Most of them were just books I had read and knew that I wouldn’t read again, some DNF’s and a couple I was gifted but I knew I wouldn’t read due to the genre and style of the book. So, I have a nice bag ready for my local ‘Tesco’ book donation station.

Next up I arranged the books I wanted to keep, I sorted them by height order. I know some people like to arrange books by author, colour, alphabetical and so on, but I like to arrange mine by height. If I don’t for some reason it really messes with my head and makes my brain itch lol. I’m weird I know lol.

So my hardback cover books by various authors I arranged by height on one shelf, I then made one shelf just dedicated to my Charmed book collection. As a teenager I loved, no that’s not right I ‘adored’ Charmed. And whenever I had pocket money I would buy myself the next Charmed book in the series. Charmed was based on the hit television series of the same name and followed three sister witches, Prue, Piper and Phoebe and then later when Prue died, Piper, Phoebe and Paige. I loved Charmed and not just because one of my favourite sister witches had the same name as me… Piper hehe. But because I loved the story of magic, demons, sisterhood and them trying to live normal lives when they were totally not normal. So yeah, my Charmed book collection has a whole shelf just for them. I then have a shelf with a picture from my favourite video game… The Last Of US… It’s a zombie horror but has such a great story line to it. And I also have hidden in my shelves my Stephen King ‘Carrie’ Funko Pop doll because one of my BETA readers for my own book, ‘Death’s Carousel’, compared it to Carrie just with Deathly lullabies and no telekinesis!!! Death’s Carousel by Piper Nuelle Just in case you fancy checking it out hehe xo

I also love Tarot cards and collect a magazine collection which is Total Tarot, so I decided to have one shelf dedicated to the binder folders that hold all my magazines inside, and then one shelf for all the Tarot cards I have collected from the magazine collection. Funny thing is I am crap at reading the cards lol, but they fascinate me, plus I have collected them for so long now that I don’t want to have just a half assed collection, I want, well I need the whole collection for my brain to feel happy lol. Along with the Tarot cards I do have my crystals that I love dotted around my study and my bookcase, along with a lone fake potted plant. I am alright gardening outside, but houseplants… I murder those. So, fake greenery inside is best for me haha.

On the very last shelf at the bottom are my folders, these are book ideas, finished book manuscripts, books I have helped others write and or edit and behind them is my notebooks. Because you never know when you might need that idea you wrote down in 2019 but need it for a book you are working on now.

And here is the after, my nicely finished clean and tidy and organised bookcase… For now anyway. I’m sure in a few months it will need doing again because I will finish reading more books, I will buy more books and dust will settle.

As you can see it looks so much better, so much more organised and it feels fresher in my study and not so cluttered which makes it easier for my mind to concentrate. I also have on the very top shelf my typewriter that I rescued from my local tip shop, it actually still works too!!! And the little footstall with a few books on, well that is some I am planning to take with me somewhere… but more on that another blog post.

I hope you enjoyed my little blog of organising my bookcase and I hope it inspires you to declutter and to tidy yours.

xo Piper xo