There is a towering stack of books currently sitting on our dresser. It grows every time my mother visits or my husband steps into a bookstore. His stack is composed mostly of big, thick, hardcover history books like The House of Morgan, The King of Vodka, and Supreme Power *yawn*. My stack is made up of literary fiction and memoirs *yes!*. What my books lack in girth, they make up for in quantity. I currently have 8 books in my to-read pile. Throw in a couple Bibles and we've got ourselves some impressively tall stacks. Eight books will sound like a lot to some of you. But I know plenty of people who could get through my pile in just a few weeks (Mom, Grandma, Traci, I'm talking to you). That's part of my problem. My main supplier (my mother) has a lot more reading time on her hands. I can't keep up. (If you're curious what sort of books are in my pile, click on over to my Goodreads profile.)
So why must they sit on our dresser? Good question. I like my stack. I like seeing it every day. It give me something to look forward to, something to plan. What am I going to read next? I don't necessarily want these books out of easy reach. I've decided a new nightstand will be my next purchase in the name of decluttering.
Our current "nightstand" is pathetic. It's one of those $10 three-legged plywood round tables a college kid might pick up for a dorm room. That's our nightstand. We don't even bother to throw a cheesy round tablecloth on it (hence the water spots). Nope, it's just a very unstable, ugly plywood table, steady enough only to hold a lamp (don't get me started on the lamp) and our cell phones. When our dogs are particularly playful they have a tendency to knock this table and the lamp and the phones onto the floor. Often the legs come apart at that point. It happens every couple of months. Eventually I'd love to get a new bedroom set. But our bedroom is small--large enough only for our bed, one nightstand, and a dresser. So a new bedroom set will wait until we move, some day far in the future. Our current dresser, by the way, is from the bedroom set my parents got when they married in 1969. It's showing it's age, but it's got modern clean lines and I like it. Other than our two bathrooms, our bedroom is the only room in the house that has not gone through some serious decorating since we moved in 5 1/2 years ago. It will happen. Maybe once the project is complete and we've been living in a clean house for a while we'll finally see the potential in this room and get the job done. Until then, a new nightstand will have to suffice.
PS I will be looking for a new lamp as well. Isn't this one just lovely?
PSS If anyone knows a high school senior, I've got a fantastic dorm room table available! And a lamp!
My advice: Get two 2- or 3-shelf bookcases as nightstands. And get a basket for each. Then, if the top is wide enough, keep your ugly lamp and spray paint it some fabulous color and grab an interesting or unimposing shade. If it's not wide enough, find slim lamps OR find sconces you can hang on the wall. This is my dream bedside scenario.
ReplyDeleteI love the bookcase idea!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Traci about a bookshelf and I was also thinking that you should get one of the wall mounted lamps. As for spray painting the lamp it works great. We actually did it on light fixtures from John's parents. They gave us hand-me-downs that were brass, but they spray painted them with a textured silvery paint and they look brand new.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm pretty sure I had that same pathetic excuse for table when we lived in the love shack (cute euphemism for our first house which was a whopping 900 sq ft. and to do laundry you had to go outside and lift the celler doors to get to the basement.) Anyway, on a more recent note, my current night stand is a short wooden file cabinet. It is not attractive in the least, except for the faux wood finish, but it does have room to hold stuff. As for a lamp, I have a 10 dollar target reading lamp. That's all I need:)
ReplyDeleteWell, Kerrie, that would explain where we got the horrible table. Thanks a lot! A reading lamp is definitly an option we're considering.
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