Shipping a library

When Younger Daughter (who, as you know, is in the Navy) was home visiting us last May, one of the things she did was sort and inventory her extensive collection of books.

We moved out of our old house while she was overseas in Japan, so we boxed all the books she had left behind in her bedroom. We made sure to identify her books, as we had thousands of our own books boxed up as well.

When we moved into our new home, Younger Daughter’s books got stored up in the new loft Don built above his “man cave.” Last May, she was just heading for her European duty station and didn’t know what her living situation would be. So she sorted her books and labeled some for quasi-permanent storage with us, but a large selection she wanted shipped overseas whenever she got her own place.

She’s now settled into her apartment where she’ll be for several years, and asked for her books. In late December, I shipped her the first batch, which she just received. But she had nowhere to put them … yet.

Because one wall of her apartment is an enormous blank white space, and because she’s not allowed to paint it a different color, she came up with a clever idea.

She went to IKEA (of course there’s an IKEA not far away from her!) and purchased enough bookshelves to fit the entire length of the wall. Then, to add a dramatic splash of color, she’s papering the inside of each bookshelf with wallpaper, as well as painting the shelves a darker color to offset the stark white walls.

She admits the blue-and-yellow theme may look strange, but I have a feeling she’ll be able to pull it off (unlike me, both our daughters developed excellent taste in interior design).

Meanwhile, I boxed up the remainder of her library and shipped it off to her.

She said she’ll send pictures when the whole thing is complete. As I told the nice lady in the post office who was processing the customs forms, there are worse things to have than kids who are crazy about their books.