After the seriousness of yesterday, I thought that today we should loosen things up a bit. Oh look, it’s a baby panda:
(Note to Grace and El: Please keep your squeals down to reasonable decibel levels that won’t hurt my ears.)
Seriously, that thing is so dang cute that if I were a female panda, I would have started ovulating immediately.
Anyway, moving on to today’s main frivolity….
Do you know Roy G. Biv? I’m a big fan. I love rainbows and I love rainbow order. In fact, no lie, I sort my clothes into Roy G. Biv order — the clothes in my closet, the t-shirts in my dresser. I haven’t sorted my shoes that way yet, but only because it only just occurred to me to do so.
Anyway, on a related note, inspired by Pinterest — and isn’t that a statement that is fraught with danger — I did this:
These are the shelves in our study; these are only some of the books here in our house. Visible to the left is the Jen on the Edge Official Blogging World HQ. Not visible at the bottom of the photo are the piles o’ crapola that I still need to deal with, including old photos that need to be scanned and old financial documents that need to be shredded.
How did this come about? What form of Martha-inspired insanity led me to this? Actually, it’s something I had been pondering for a while. I had tried to sort our books by type (fiction, non-fiction, etc.) and then by author, but that failed so badly as to be laughable. We here in Jenworld are incredibly lazy about putting books back exactly where they belong, myself included. So since I couldn’t find books by author anyway, I decided to at least make things look nice. And let me tell you, if anyone gets lazy about putting books back correctly, I will know.
Roy G. Biv in our home library pleases me greatly. I love looking at it. The other day I was feeling out of sorts and like I’ll never conquer or even tame clutter in Jenworld, so I stood in front of the books and admired what I had accomplished thus far. And then, feeling fortified and strong, I went forth and did in fact conquer some clutter that had been sticking its tongue out at me and going neener neener for far too long.
Grace loves it — she too sorts her life by Roy G. Biv — but El didn’t notice until Grace said something to her. If Pete has noticed — and that is doubtful, he hasn’t said anything. Of course, now he knows, so maybe he’ll think to take a look tonight. Or not.
What about you? Do you sort things by Roy G. Biv? How do you sort your books?
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Does Pete sort his shorts by Roy G. Biv? You know, like group all the kahkis together and then he’s done? *grin*
I tend to sort hardbacks together and paperbacks together, and then break down alphabetically by author. When I bother.
And here’s a confession. I’m uber-unorganized. (Probably ties in with my non-Type A personality.) I am a non-sorter who tends to pile things. Clutter is my middle name. You would go crazy at my place. Seriously, I think my closet would actually give you seizures.
I don’t have space to keep all the books I would like. They used to be sorted by author (if I had a lot by the same author) or at least by genre (fiction, romance, sci-fi). Now they are all jumbly.
Now I want to sort my fabric stash by color. Wouldn’t that be pretty?
Sort…? What’s that? ;D
Oh! It’s pretty! I never heard of this, but I am a stickler for organization with my books. I do Dewey here.
Trying again…I love this look! We keep our books behind doors, but shelving by color is very popular in design blogger land. When I walked into Gillian Grimm’s old house on a Cville home tour, I knew it was hers by the bookshelves!
We sort of approximate Dewey. Cookbooks together, music books together, memoirs, religion, travel, poetry, children’s, etc. All of the comics/graphic novels are together and sorted in whatever order makes sense to my husband’s brain. And then all of the fiction is together, sorted approximately by author’s last name…approximate because we have way more books than shelf space and the piles are often 2 deep and stacked with books horizontal rather than as a bookshelf is intended to be used, so putting a book back (or adding a new book) often results in the book being added to the 2nd, outermost pile in approximately the right spot alphabetically.
Our books are organized sort of by topic.
The shirts hanging in my closet are organized by color.
My husband has his own bookcases, and I can’t speak for his organization system. My kids’ books are sorted by weight: heaviest books on the bottom shelves, and progressively lighter books as you get to the top, so the bookcase won’t topple on them. Mine are organized mostly by type, but with sub categories for nationality of the author and the time period each book was written in.
Mine are sorted by author, although sometimes I separate the softcover and hardcover books.
I remember back when Emma was 8 or so, she started to sort her books and her first method was alphabetical by the first name of the author. I found it very confusing.
Mine would lean heavily to the black side of the rainbow, what with all the Stephen King books. We don’t buy books, but borrow from the library. What we do have are mostly gifts or stuck-in-airline-delay-hell-and-ran-out-of-reading-material stuff. Except SK. I collect his hardbacks (my mom buys them for my birthdays/holidays). So everything fits in 4 small shelves. SK’s get their own 2 shelves (in danger of overflowing) and the others are all sorted in descending height order, left to right.
My kids are the book exceptions in our house: they are both overflowing their bookshelves. In fact, I’m stopping at IKEA tonight to pick up a couple big expedits to hold books and scrapbooks (okay fine, and toys in baskets) in our bonus room. Their books will be removed from their rooms except for a few favorites. They can then pick what book they want each night for stories from the general collection instead of arguing over which book is whose. (Also a chance for some of the very baby board books to disappear.) Those books? Also arranged in height descending order. But maybe I’ll combine that with color…
Oh, Hi!!!
I had never heard of Roy G. Biv (obviously, I’ve been out of the
looparc) but that is pretty display on your shelf. And hey, if it inspires you and makes you happy, go for it!I like to organize books according to use: my study books on one shelf, the books we used for homeschooling on another shelf (literature-based curriculum meant we bought some great books), resource books together, etc.
When we moved here, my husband just unloaded the books on the bookshelves. Ever since then, there has been stuff stored in front of some of it — his mountain bike, or a box of potatoes, or …. Umm, I think I need to do a post on where our home library is located. It’s weird.
Oh, and I did keep many of the adult books arranged by author. The kids’ books from our homeschooling days were arranged in the order we used them, which worked great since it was mostly American history from the 1600′s to 1950′s.
I am more of an alphabet girl, so my spices are in alpha order, my books are by author. ROY G BIV is a great alternative!
This fascinates me! I consider myself organized but it never occurred to me to organize my books in anything other than size order. That was mostly a practical thing since some books will only fit on certain shelves because of the size. I guess I just thought everyone did it that way. I have to say, I like the colors.
Can you hear MY panda squeals? I betcha can.
I Lovey McLovey your shelves.
Oh I do that too! Although not necessarily in Roy G Biv order, but each shelf is a solid color. I tend to have too many white and black books (ahem, that would be the old fashion novel reader – the white books and the architect – the black books, in our house) so I mix the shelves with color in with the white and black shelves for balance) People used to think I was nuts but now it’s very “in” I guess. I remember books by the color of the spine so it’s the only way I can find things. The funny thing is that when we moved into this house I initially just shoved books on shelves and my husband, who used to make the most fun of my system, complained because he couldn’t find anything when it was all mixed up. Ha!