I’ve mentioned a couple of times to visiting friends that I decorate with books. We have many shelves placed wherever there’s wall space and they’re just bursting with titles. I can’t think of any shelves we have that aren’t spilling over with books as opposed to say, dusty trinkets and collectables. Maybe just the dining hutch because I don’t want to crowd in the china.

Certainly, being a homeschooling family has only added to our book lust. And despite the ability to free ourselves of the desire for many material goods, Tony and I can’t refuse a good book. On any given week you can find close to 50 library books in our house. (Honestly, it would be much worse if we could carry more than that in one trip.) It’s clear we’ve passed this love onto the next generation. So it was only a matter of time before we found a way to use that blank wall by the steps to help our habit.

It started with this pin.

I couldn’t use it when I pinned it but I filed it away. Then later when we ripped out some built-in bookshelves during our kitchen renovation we lost the area we typically used to display books. After my last hasty rearranging of the living room it finally looked liked I could use the idea after all. Tony purchased the white, plastic gutters, cut them to the correct length and hung them with screws and washers into the wall. He’s pretty sure he hit at least one stud somewhere.

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Two views; at the top, looking down the stairs and from the living room, looking straight on. These pictures were taken pre and post library visit for the week so you can see a few different titles peeking out.

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I love the idea of strewing, but it’s not something I’ve been able to implement too successfully in the past. Even on our previous display shelf books typically got lost at the bottom of the stack. Same problem with storing our library books in a dedicated box next to the couch. Our need to keep our floor plan open (for the wheelchair) means no coffee table. Many time I found myself returning books that had only been read once, simply because they’d been forgotten about. Plus, our own shelves are loaded with children’s books the kids, especially the younger three, forget about.

I love finally having a way to display all our titles by theme and mix old and new titles with library books. Since seeing them on display, the kids have never read so many science books .

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For some reason, the inside back cover was fascinating.

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Even Teddy can reach up and grab books and has been asking for more than his usual dump truck book. And while there are still some titles that go unread, it’s a much smaller percentage. Sometimes I’m very surprised by what one child will pick up. Edie, our 7-year-old, asked to read the ‘Stories of Shakespeare’ title at the top. While she wasn’t able to read very much on her own, I never would’ve considered giving it to her to try.

It’s all worked out so splendidly that I’m going to hang two shorter scrap pieces of gutter next to the girl’s bunk beds.  (Did I just use the word “splendidly” in talking about rain gutters? You know it!) The girls are notorious for carrying armloads of books to bed at night without realizing they still have a dozen titles scattered amongst the Pillow Pets, comforters and whatever else. (Sometimes I hate to look.)

So put this Pinterest project in the win column! And special thanks to my husband for not rolling his eyes when I first excitedly told him about hanging rain gutters inside our house.

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