phaedra's Profile

This space feels so three-dimensional and lived in (i.e., the kind of home where people and their comfort don't take a backseat to "vignettes") and I simply adore the fact that they managed to carve out a special little library niche.

I have to agree. As a longtime reader, I've been feeling increasingly alienated since Apartment Therapy went corporate. AT's mission statement speaks to living simply and without waste. These enormous suburban homes occupied by only one or two individuals don't epitomize that philosophy of "reducing their reliance on stuff." Combined with the editorial choice to more frequently juxtapose "low-end" brands/products that are well outside the average median American household income with "high-end" brands that are absolutely unattainable to a significant portion of their readership, it seems as though AT is becoming more irrelevant and unrelatable to their target audience.

I gave up on trying to use any sort of visual or subject-based system when I tipped 2000 books and literally hit a wall on storage space. My very tech-literate manfriend helped me catalog my library online. Now, there are only two major sections (read and unread) and I can pinpoint the exact location of any book in my shelves with a few swipes on my phone. It's given me a very concrete system for determining how and why I keep books. Every book that comes into my home is given a time limit--six months, one year, two years, infinite. If I enjoy a book enough to reread it, it moves to the rinse-and-repeat section. If I haven't finished it by the deadline, I'll reevaluate what struck me about it in the first place. This often ends with me giving a stack of unopened novels to a friend and reconsidering my evolving tastes the next time I'm pondering what to buy at a booksale.

It seems tedious when describing it but, after the few weeks I initially spent cataloging, it only takes a few minutes to input new books as I buy them. I weed my shelves about every six months and it usually takes less than an hour or two.

Bring on the mai tais.

My ex and I lived in a two-bedroom apartment almost as if it were a studio--a shared bedroom in the living room and we each had our own office/living room space in the bedrooms. Oh, and heaven help him if he set foot in my bathroom. We had separate friends, different tastes in movies and music, alternate work/school schedules. He played loud video games while I love a cozy, quiet reading nook. A lot of people thought it was strange that we had our own "homes" but I doubt we would have stayed together for almost a decade without them. Current partner and I spend almost all of our time at home within ten feet of each other. We share a bedroom but I usually sleep at night and he sleeps during the day with only a few hours of overlap. Both of these living arrangements produced happy, peaceful homes.

Whatever makes it work for your relationship, imho.