House Post: Library Organizing & Rug

The library has been in fine shape for some time now; once we did the initial renovation, it's functioned nicely as a library/craft room/exercise room. I spend a lot of quality time in there reading and sewing, and a lot of miserable time on the treadmill.

However, an upgrade for the space has been on the back of my mind for some time now, and last weekend that finally happened.

Here's the before; pardon the mess, but it all shifts around on a regular basis as I better organize the books and cut and sew fabric.

We took all the furniture out of the room except the bookshelves, and rolled up the old rug, which led to the sad discovery that in the year or so since we originally pulled up the old rug, there was some bad sun fading to the beautiful hardwood floors.

This room got more direct sunlight than almost any other in the house - definitely more than any other room that has the exposed hardwood. So that's a lesson learned for me, I guess. It's not a problem going forward, though, because after vacuuming and cleaning up a bit, we unrolled a new rug in the space.

It's actually quite an old rug, belonging to my great-great-uncle many years ago and having made its way to me through a chain of family members. The label on the back indicates it actually came from Iran - probably at least 75 years ago. It's still in extraordinary shape and fits the room perfectly. I love it.

With the unrolling of the rug, the treadmill went elsewhere, and I am working hard to organize the books still further. I'm even - gulp - setting aside boxes to donate and/or sell to our local used bookstore.

This room isn't 100% done yet; my longterm goal for this room is to do built-in shelving all the way around. That's a few years off, though. So this is how it will live in the near term!