book collection

This Isn’t A Book-Burning – It’s Artistic Display!

It’s finally summertime, and I won’t be lighting a fire in my fireplace anytime soon. So . . .

I’m really considering cleaning out the firebox and stacking it full of books for the summer season.

Why not put my love of books on display in a creative and unexpected way? I have such a large collection, it should be fairly easy to fill.

Country Living

I really, really want to do this. I’m just concerned about cleaning out my gas fireplace well enough that I don’t soot up all my tomes . . .

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I guess I’ll have to store all that fake ash stuff that sits in the bottom under the grate. Where on earth will I put that?

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Maybe I’ll go to a yard sale and buy a bunch of really crappy books to line the bottom and outermost sides with. Then I won’t have to worry about ruining the ones I love.

Fireplace from a Bookshop in Lark

I know I’ll love it if I do it, but what a shame they’ll have to come back out in the fall. I guess it’s not much different than the trouble of putting up and taking down a Christmas tree, right? Do you think I should???

A Yard Sale Story

Great things happen to me at yard sales. Seemingly small but great things. There have been countless times I’ve had a thought like “I wish I had a toaster oven,” then two weeks later I stop by a yard sale on the way home from somewhere else and find a perfect toaster oven.

Here’s my most recent example. A few weeks ago, this was the vignette on the table in the entry to my house. I love grouping vintage books by color, and pink is a hard color to come by. I love the children’s book on top, The Pink Motel. But it’s obviously a bit worn, torn, and dirty. I usually don’t display books in this condition – I like to have clean, functional pieces in my collections. But I really love the pink cover, the title, and the illustrations on the cover.