thniels's Profile

Our library consists of well over a thousand novels plus roughly the same in non-fiction. Fiction is alphabetized and kept apart with lettered library separator posts. Everything else is sorted by topic and in a few cases by size for practical reasons. Previously we had a shelf wall fiction and one for non-fiction. Now we have one wall with a section reserved for general non-fiction and keep the remaining non-fiction books around the house where they make sense, e.g. food-related in the kitchen and music theory in the music room.

As for sorting books by size or color or anything else not directly related to the contents, is completely beyond my comprehension. Which color exactly is the back of Lord of The Rings? What do I do when the three volumes of said novel has three different colors? I have two copies of The Hobbit - Allan Lee's illustration a massive 4-pounder, the other a tiny pocket book. How do I get my copy of The Technologists out from underneath that tower of smaller novels stacked on top of it? Do I even own the third volume of Wizard of Earthsea - could I have lent it to someone or is it simply in another stack? Not in a million years. We don't do things by the Dewey system, but a bit of order is... well... in order.

By the way. To keep it simple and to help sorting novels, we have them in a database. Textbooks, dictionaries and everything non-fiction is only registered if we consider it "ever valid". A latin dictionary is. A computer textbook is not. Two good examples of online databases are Librarything.com and Goodreads.com. We use the former for its localization and integration with European libraries, even if Goodreads appear to be the better one from a CS view of things.

p.s. And yes; http://bookshelfporn.com is your friend. Extremely cool website.

The Anchor showroom picture shown with the original question is really quite a neat way to have a compact array of instruments look tidy. Usually when placing guitar hangers that closely you will get a cramped and messy wall. The beams here create a visual break and at the same time reduce the number of holes drilled to a minimum as well as bringing the guitars further off the wall and thus protecting the backs from accidentally hitting the brick.

For my music study I bought a number of angled hangers that let me hang the guitars perpendicular to the wall thus saving a lot of space. They don't, however, look this nice. In our new house this is definitely the solution I will aim for.

As for the Ikea hack, I am not too fond of that particular solution when talking collectibles. It looks pretty cool, no discussion about that, but considering how cheap such hangers as K&M are for instance, I would go for the real thing and sleep more comfortably knowing the finish is safe from scratches.