I had the sudden and energetic urge to redo the entire house this morning after my second cup of coffee. After about ten minutes I regained my sanity and settled my sights on something slightly more achievable. I moved everything off the front porch/entryway, swept, and rearranged it (mostly the plants). I put a bunch of random shells we had brought back from the beach last October along the garden border – the bucket of shells had been sitting there ever since we arrived home.
When I came back inside I took a good look at the small bookcase by the kitchen which holds all of the cookbooks. It had gotten terribly disorganized and dusty and was an eyesore. I took everything off and Amelia helped me dust while I tightened the screws. The bookcase itself has been heavily used since I bought from Pier 1 it in 1992 to take to college. I will say we got our money’s worth and then some. It’s still hanging in there despite being moved at least 12 times.
By rearranging everything I was able to display some mismatched old family silverware that had come from our family beach house plus a vintage flour sifter I’ve had forever. I feel guilty for not having used some of those cookbooks more (I don’t have a cookbook-buying problem; 80% of them were gifts) but now the area looks nice enough that I won’t mind picking out a book to leaf through.
I’ve done some other serious cleaning/putting away/throwing out today, but this was the most dramatic change and the most photogenic, so I’m sharing photos of this one.
Praying With My Feet 
Looks very nice! I like to organize, too. I have thought of getting rid of many of my cookbooks as I use internet recipes mostly. However, when things are organized, it is easier to find and more likely to be used.
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I actually gave away a cookbook today!
Your cookbook shelf is more photogenic than mine, though…
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You should have seen it before. Actually, no you shouldn’t.
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You’re inspiring me! Thank you!
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Funny I should find this as I have a pile of folders on the table with a phenomenal amount of recipes printed out from online….. finally deciding I need to go through them and purge most and save the ones I’ve actually used and want to use again and arrange them neatly in a binder…… this after also purging the cookbooks I haven’t touched in years and still looking at the pile I have in the cupboard that I use so often and then there’s the untidy shelf downstairs of the ones I don’t use nearly as often. One step at a time I guess but I love the photo of your cookbook bookshelf!
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Thank you! I have a binder as well as two card boxes but they desperately need to be gone through. The funny thing is, I recently redid the shelf as I literally found a piece of furniture on the side of the road that works perfectly! I need to post photos of that. It’s larger than the first so I got to put some Pyrex stacks on it too.
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