Books as Decor

As I told you yesterday I LOVE the shelving unit by our front door. It is a six cube style shelf. I just wasted a good 20 minutes trying to find a generic image online to show you. GAH. Anyway, we placed it on it’s side so that it could double as a side table for Chance. Here’s a picture from yesterday. You can see we have a lamp and the basket for our mail on the shelf all the time.

Our living room follows a fairly predictable Patriotic theme. I’d like to say Americana but rather than burgundy or cranberry we stuck with the traditional bold red. We have a print of Frieberg’s Prayer at Valley Forge above our couch. The couch and love seat are both a golden beige color. The curtains and some of the throw pillows are navy blue and the rest of the throw pillows are red, as evidenced in the picture above.

When I started to add stuff to this shelf I decided I wanted the decor to be practically permanent.

And so our Red, White, and Blue; All-American; Chance and Jenny Book Shelf was born!

The flash kills some of the detail but the pictures without the flash were too dark. It’s a tough corner.

In one cube is a wedding picture of Chance and I. Plus, since my flowers were red the photo stays on theme.

Then in the two bottom corners I placed memorabilia from my husband’s youth. He saved commemorative Coke cans that celebrate Atlanta Braves’ victories. (One is from 1992 celebrating back-to-back NL Championships and the other is from the World Series win of 1995). We also have some bottles from our trips to the World of Coke in Atlanta. In the other cube you’ll see a glove containing a baseball that says Braves right on it. Baseball and Coke. To get this shelf any more American I’d have to add an Apple Pie.

**And that’s when it hits me. I have a 19 year-old can of Coke on my book shelf. Wow. Seriously? That can’t be right.**

So you can see the other three cubes have books. I just went through our extensive library and picked books in the colors that I wanted. Then I weaned it down to the books that were in complimentary tones of said color. It came as no surprise to me that most of the books fell into the political category. Four of the books are actually college textbooks so they say a lot about us without being over-bearing.

I alternated standing the books up vs. laying them down. I didn’t want them to all be the same. Then to finish it off I added a coordinating accessory. So, the red candle was $2 at Wal-Mart. Then in the blue box I bought the glass and a bag of blue toned marbles. Those two items combined were $5. I knew I needed something there to act as a bookend while staying in the blue vein. Finally, on top of the white books I placed a framed embroidery that I bought years ago. I was grateful to finally have a place for it.

In case you are wondering, that smiling face is indeed Ronald Regan. And yes, I did deliberately place the frame so it wouldn’t cover him up. I like thinking that when you walk into our home the Gipper is looking up, smiling, and waving at you.

Maybe later this week I’ll get some more pictures of the rest of the living room to give you an idea of what we have done with the place.

Seriously. A 19 year-old can of Coke? I don’t know how to feel about that.