A Current Favorite

This post isn't really about books as much as it is about book storage. A few weeks ago I finally got some wall ledges (I believe they are officially named "picture ledges") at Ikea. I have been obsessing over these for about a year. All of our books are kept on bookshelves, in the traditional manner...but I started thinking that Mia would want to read a larger variety of her books if she could recognize books by their covers...instead of just their spines on the shelves...especially since she can't read yet. She has more books than she can remember! Working in children's services in the library setting, I know how important a good display can be. Great books won't be read if no one knows they are there. Displaying books is the way to help.

So, what I ended up doing is getting three of the shorter (I think it's about 22" long) "ribba" ledges and having my handyman (husband) hang them in Mia's playroom. I would have preferred the longer versions (about 45") of the ledges, but I was only able to get the short. I liked the birch finish, but the ledges also come in black and white. My store was sold out of the birch and Ikea has discontinued that version. I left the store without any that day. After thinking about it for a while after that shopping trip, I looked on eBay and I found the birch version! I also found some on Amazon. I really like the white ledges, but decided that i liked birch the best for our playroom AND I felt the birch looked the best in Mia's bedroom, just in case we moved them into her room in the future. They were easy for my husband to install-they are just screwed into the wall, they don't require to be anchored to a stud. My husband worries that this will make them less sturdy, but everything seems alright thus far. I will be careful how much I place on each shelf and I won't let Mia hang from them like the little monkey girl that she is. ;)

So far, I've been thrilled with them! Almost everyday, I switch out the books, so that Mia is seeing different covers. She has actually gone into the playroom and looked at the books on the shelves and asked to read them right that instant. Hooray! Exactly what I wanted to happen. We always read before bed and although I do offer throughout the day, I try to not do it too much (especially since my husband tries to persuade Mia to read with him constantly when he's home...but that's a whole other story, for a whole other blog post...and maybe even another blog! ;)) so that she doesn't get sick of reading. Anytime she asks to read, I drop whatever I'm doing (within reason, of course) and do it. It's so important that kids want to read books with the people they love and that they have FUN while doing it.