I tend to be a very utilitarian book owner. I don't typically buy or hold onto books just because I really enjoyed them. If I don't plan to read or refer to a book again in the future it will not take up residence with me. Consequently, my collection is heavily weighted in favor of reference books.

My public library serves most of my pleasure reading needs and I usually stop by at least once a week.

My personal book collection is small-ish.

I have one narrow bookcase in my living room,

a storage box in the corner of my bedroom closet,

oh, and a big wicker trunk,

 and, um... a smaller wicker box.

I've attempted to teach my children the importance of having good books to read available but not to be hoarders. They each have a bookshelves in their rooms (which are packed to nearly overflowing, but we sort them from time to time and pass on anything they don't read if they don't love it too much to part with it). 

Anyway, my point is, homeschooling requires books, lots of books. If one surrenders one's very cool schoolroom to be remodelled into a guestroom it only stands to reason that the books will have to find new homes. So Mr. Logo built this, but it only gets partial credit because the books have to share space with the printer and all the photo albums and whatnot.



Of course a few of the books can fit in the twin cabinets from the school room, but mostly they are full of other critical homeschooling supplies.

So, the far end of my breakfast room was stacked high with boxes of books and the overflow was taking up the windowsills, to which Mr. Logo objected. A clever solution was found and so this new cabinet found its way into our home.

Oooooo, shiny.

 It goes really well the black table and chairs in the breakfast room and it holds a metric buttload of books (that is more than the US standard buttload, but the British buttload is larger).
Not to mention, I can store stuff on top of it!

 Now, if someone with too much time and lots of spare mental energy were look at that picture closely they might wonder about why I have a cash register (I'm assuming the globe, test tubes, and balance are self-explanatory). That cash register features a fully-functioning calculator and it turns out, given the choice between a boring old calculator and the cash register version, most children and lots of adults will opt for the ulta-cool cash register model. Also, it hold full-sized coins and bills and is therefore awesome for garage sales, bake sales, etc.

I also think that learning to make (or check) change is a critical life skill and obviously the cash register makes that WAY more entertaining.

Anyway, the cabinet has cleared the boxes out and gotten the books out of the window sills. This is the drawer that looks sort of well-organized.

 Soooo, now I have another big box of books arriving this week and we get to start the hunt for more book storage again, but

I really NEEDED these books, for school, and references, and important stuff like that.