Instead of working organizing/cleaning the parts of my apartment that really need it I decide instead to focus on my living room. I have a tiny apartment, it’s larger than my last one in Binghamton which was 2 room, and the back half of a Funeral Director’s garage) but it’s in the basement of the building and very cold. Every other apartment has access from inside the building, and I have lovely wooden steps of doom that are very high and were once knocked down in a storm by a large wall (leaving me no way down to my apt.) Needless to say, I’m not going to be staying here forever. Where I live though getting an apartment is a miracle, there are only a handful of places, and there is a college right down the road, so I’m completing with lots of other interested parties (who are having parties.) I plan to stay here until I have tenure at my job (one more year!) and then look into something more settled, maybe renting/purchasing a townhouse in the area. I should probably stop probably buy less books so I can start saving ;)

So while my apartment isn’t the best thing in the world, it’s small and cute, and I like to decorate it. The focal point of my living room is the side wall, where there are two inset lights that can be turned on right above the spot. I decided to make this my reading corner, and plopped down a bookcase and my Pier One Pillow chair. But…This is also near my TV, so my bookshelf (also from Pier One) started to become a DVD shelf. I bought two more bookshelves, and also stole my brother’s that he used back in college. But this left basically one shelf per room, and everything in a bit of chaos organization wise.

I haven’t quite decided which books to put on what shelf, I change my mind often, but I do have my YA shelf all arranged in the computer room (it’s my tall shelf of course.) I was looking at my living room the other day and thought it looked a bit bare and I wasn’t getting enough use out of the space 9plus I had books that had been kicked off the shelf to make room for the DVDs that were now homeless, and laying on top of my old PC:

So I kidnapped the matching shelf from the backroom (computer and laundry room) and stuck them together in that spot. I grabbed many of the books I have yet to read from all the other bookshelves and make a TBR shelf (well the first two shelves, the last shelf is some of my favorites/classics:

I like the space better now, I guess Sadie does too. I still don’t know where to put those decorative wall shelves you see on my couch, but I’ll find a place, I mean it only took me a year to finish hanging my paintings. Yes, that is a Shirley Temple Poster on my wall, judge me all you want :P

Now, I am ashamed to post this, because I KNOW that trouble I will be in.  But here is a closeup of the To Be Read Shelf. I know there are so many great books on there, especially the conclusions to two of my favorite series (Funke and Bray…and my unread new Shannon Hale Book.) I know how bad this looks, but I was waiting until I got out of my reading slump to enjoy them, and then Library books happened and got in the way. No more excuses, posting this here will MAKE me finally get to those books on the shelf….after I finish my three Library Books I have out

-The Awakening

-Bras and Broomsticks

-Poison Study

Then I’ll start back to work on this pile:

If anyone is interested in new shelving, I would recommend these bookshelves. I have these two of the 3 shelves, and one of the 5 shelves. They have made moving (from State to State, or just moving from one room to another) much easier as they are folding shelves, but still very solid. They are from Pier 1 as I mentioned, there is a non-iphone photo you can view here

If you are really bored, or love to look at how people decorate (or fail to) I have a Flickr photo-collection of many of the apartments and rooms I have lived in. I have yet to update it with the decorating I did in the new place, but I will get to that next week, as I get to work on the rest of the rooms.
The Ghosts of Apartments Past