Battle of the Bookshelves!

I currently have two bookshelves. Both are pretty old, they've been though at least two moves with us, and one has held up better than the other. The one that is in relatively good shape is from Big Lots (I think, it might be Target or K-Mart but I'm like 85% sure it's Big Lots). The other shelf is a Billy Bookcase from Ikea. We bought it from the 'As-Is' section, it has some damage to one of the sides but not damage that affects it's ability to hold books. It was cheap and I didn't care what it looked like since I figured it would always be next to another bookshelf or a wall or something and the damage would be nearly invisible. My point being, the Billy is wobbley.  Currently there are no books on it because A.) it was so wobbley I was afraid it would collapse and B,) We are trying to sell our house and our realtor said it would look like we were ready to move if we had some boxes sitting around, so I boxed up some books. Four rather large boxes of books. 

So I have a total of one (1) usable bookshelf. I also got a shit-ton of books for my birthday at the end of November and Christmas, plus I like to do a little retail therapy at the used books store once in a while. And I had birthday money to spend, and most of it went to books. All of this means one thing; I've got piles of books all over. Well, I did until today. The Toddler and I spent part of today reorganizing the one operational bookshelf to fit as many books as possible. It's not pretty, and there are book stacked almost to the ceiling but they are on the shelf. 

Here is the before picture...

 And the after...

It took a lot to get them all the fit. I spent most of the morning looking at blog posts with book organizing tips, which was a trial of my patience. I started on Pinterest, because I usually find the most awesome ideas on Pinterest, but apparently no one on Pinterest has many books, and if they do they are all covered in white craft paper so they all match, which would be infuriating if you actually wanted to read a book. 

Seriously, I tried to do 'Pinterest Pretty' bookshelves one time. I spent hours organizing all my books by color. When I was done I stepped back and took a look at, it was pretty. And it drove me nuts. They were out of order. I couldn't do it. So my pretty shelves lasted about 3 minutes. 

When I didn't find anything useful on Pinterest I switched to good old Google. I found a lot of tips I'd never thought of in all my years of shelving books. 

Tip #1- Put the heavier books on the bottom. You would think this would be a no brainer. It wasn't for me. For years I have been putting hardcovers on the top shelves. They're pretty and they look nice all stacked up, but they make much more sense on the bottom where they are less likely to fall.

Tip #2- Book Tetris. If you have an empty space find a book to fill it. Obviously I did that pretty well. 

Tip #3- Use the space above the shelf. Now to be fair to myself I was using the space above the shelf. For The Husbands collection of hardcover Stephen King books. Turns out those King books fit much better in a stack on the bottom shelf and I can fit an ass load of mass market paperbacks up there on the top. 

Now all the books (that aren't in boxes) are on the shelf. They are out of order and it's a little crazy making but I am happy I got them all to fit. Now, the boxed books are the problem. 

The Husband has been going back and forth on spending the money for new bookshelves. We are trying to move so he wants to wait till we're actually in a new house before we buy bookshelves so we can get them to fit wherever they're going to go in our new house. I get it. But I want my books out. So I've decided to try to repair the Billy myself. 

The backing came off a while back and from what I've been reading that is why it's so wobbley all the sudden. I found some instructions online for how to repair it with Gorilla Glue and nails and I'm going to give it a go tomorrow.  Hopefully I'll be able to post some pretty pictures of all my books beautifully organized and not in boxes but we'll see how it goes.