Don't close the libraries

Pretty soon, I'm going to start on my gorgeous built in.  I already have a plan, but fingers crossed it works the way I want.  Don't forget the before...

I love my books.  I love the way they look, feel and smell.  Yes, smell.  Needless to say they are definitely part of the plan.

Remember I said we traveled when I was growing up?  Of all the homes we lived in, this was my favorite.

      Yes, it is as big as it looks.  The front doors opened into a grand foyer with library, breakfast nook, living room, etc to each side.  At the end of the foyer was a formal dining room with an 18 foot ceiling.  There were SIX fireplaces throughout the house.  SIX.  Granted none of them were functional, but that really didn't matter.  My favorite room, without a doubt, was the office/library.  It was to the left of the foyer and jutted out from the front of the house.  The fireplace in the library was surrounded by a dark wood and green marble tile mantle.  By the time we lived there the books and shelves were long gone, but in my mind I could just see those shelves wrapping around the room in dark mahogany filled with leather bound beauties.  I still daydream about that room.
     Down the street was a small junk/antique store.  I would spend hours in there, looking for anything I could afford.  I brought home miscellaneous brass candle sticks and wooden shoes.  That man probably thought I was casing the place, the way I'd walk around and touch EVERYTHING.  Further in town there was another antique store where my parents frequently shopped.  I don't remember his name, but he had amazing books.  I bought the oldest ones I could find no matter what they were.  I think in my mind, I was going to buy enough of them to bring the library back to life.  We stopped in one day and in a glass counter, he had the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  It was a 1938 edition of Gone With the Wind.  I wanted it!  It's all I thought about for 2 days.  So, I told my mother what I wanted to do.  She took me back to the shop and I bought the book for $100-paying in mostly quarters and half dollars no less.  No kidding, I literally broke open the piggy bank.  It lived in a place of honor on the mantle in my bedroom.  Unfortunately, the book was destroyed, along with many other things, during a hurricane in 1998.
     There's a line the movie I, Robot, as she asks Will Smith "I suppose you would have shut down the internet just to keep the libraries open?"  Yep, that's what I walked away with.  I wanted to say "Why, yes Bridgette Moynahan, yes I would."
     My point is this, don't just decorate with your books.  Read them, love them.  Don't let them close the libraries.