Thursday 4 December 2008

Out of the chaos...

there shall come order. Or so it is hoped.
These are my old Ikea Billy bookcases. They have served me well for 16 years. At one time they lived in the sitting room and were mahogany coloured, they got painted and moved up to the landing until now when some of the shelves are sagging in the middle, and the quantity of books is pulling them apart from the sides. These are 90% quilt books and magazines.
And here are their lovely replacements. Also Ikea, their shelves are 5cm deeper so all the oversize books can fit inside rather than gathering dust on the top where because they are so high, they never got a glance.
I love these doors to keep everything dust free. I shall velcro some blue toile de jouy behind the glass to hide a multitude of sins.
And Ikea being the king of storage solutions, do these fold up fabric boxes which fit perfectly (I know there are gaps but these enable you to pull them out easily).


On our way home from the cottage, we popped in to the Bristol Ikea. What a different experience from their flag ship shop in Wembley. Friendly helpful staff and no queueing! I found these lovely fabrics. Too heavy for quilting but lovely for some cushions. These reds look quite 'brick' in the photos but they are a deep cherry. And the blue in the stripe fabric marries the blue toile de jouy perfectly.
We also bought two more Billy bookcases in white to go on the landing. I'm going to 'steal' the doors from the ones in DH's office (they don't close properly on his anyway as lever arch files are about 1/2" too deep)
My new mantra, 'less stuff, and what I have MUST have a place!'

10 comments:

  1. I like those shelves, and had planned on getting them...only problem they weren't going to be big enough. I love all of my ikea furniture.

    Looks great!

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  2. I love ikea, had dinner there on Tuesday.

    I just ran out of an Ikey pink thread the other day but they don't carry that color any more. =(

    I like your mantra, I need to adopt it myself.

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  3. I like your new shelves, with doors. But why would you want to hide it all with toile? I love looking at my open bookshelves of fabric and books. I suffer from "out of sight, out of mind".

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  4. You might want to check out
    http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com
    for ideas of your old bookcases. Love that site.

    AND love your new bookcases too.

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  5. You're really getting into it, aren't you? IKEA is my favorite and they have everything that I need to keep on top of clutter (which makes me crazzzzzzy). I found a site that is totally about repurposing IKEA products and they had some great ideas there as well.
    Have fun, but don't forget that we are waiting to see how you finish off the last border on that lovely quilt you've been working on.

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  6. OOps, looks like SandyQuilts loves the IKEA hacker site as well. I should read the comments before I post one....lol.

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  7. Oh, that is my dream to have bookcases with glass doors! I've got my eye on some Mission Style ones that would match my livingroom furniture - the only place where I have room for another bookcase - or perhaps one of those barrister stacking bookcases. The dust-free thing is such a must!

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  8. so pleased that i'm not the only one with billy bookcase (with extention) filled beyond bursting! still, means plenty of reading for me during my extended "break" from sewing.

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  9. Lemme warn you..getting bigger deeper shelves only means more product can fit into them!!LOL. I have slowly purchased the Rubbermaid shelves 6x3feet. I now have 8 of them and they are full!! I have just declaired not to step into a quilt store for a very long time!! lots of books/mags and patterns that I dream of making and hope to finish are stashed in here!! good luck

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  10. love your new cabinets and the idea of putting toile behind the glass, perfect!
    oh quilt books can we ever have enough, nope!
    Kathie

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