A niche to dream in

"Plain shelves filled with good editions in good bindings are more truly decorative than ornate bookcases lined with tawdry books."
- Edith Wharton, 1902



Adults love inviting nooks just as children do; such spaces seem protective, made for the imagination. A place apart, where you can gather notes, thoughts and plans. It's simply the idea of a silence in one's self that allows one to think or to feel. Creating a corner where that silence can happen - even in the busiest of households - calls for beauty like the shelf above.

Setting up a reading nook or dreaming niche for yourself is as exciting as building a new house! Lovingly storing your favourite books and stationery in one place where you can relax with a cup of coffee, snuggling under a warm throw, is one of life's blissful pleasures.

Reading is one of the great pleasures of life and an important part of nurturing our soul, gaining knowledge and finding pleasure in fiction. As such, we must make special time for ourselves to pursue our pleasures and make it high on our list of priorities.

Whether you are lucky enough to have a library filled with books and comfortable couches or choose to use a bay window area, filled with light, or a special corner in your bedroom, your reading nook will be YOUR private hide-out where no-one is allowed in except by invitation.



Your first consideration should be a comfortable chair or chaise lounge embellished with all the luxuries like cushions and throws. A coffee or side table will come in handy for a reading lamp, tea pot, some fresh flowers, reading glasses and some extra books.

Incorporating some shelves or a bookshelf for storage of your books and favourite collections is next on the list. Be creative and innovative with your bookshelf - fill blank spaces on the shelves with candles (in case the electricity goes off!) and some of your favourite photo frames. Fill a vintage jug with some pens and pencils for making notes and have a dictionary at hand for reference.

Some extras like a footstool and magazine rack always come in handy and a soft rug underfoot adds a luxurious touch. Also give some attention to the wall colour - find a soothing theme and hang some of your favourite paintings and artwork as a finishing touch.


A corner in the living room used as a reading nook.


A bookshelf and a comfortable chair on one side of the dining room denotes this as someone's dream corner.


Storage for some favourite books


A perfect reading nook
- image from decor8

So settle in with a creamy cup of coffee, your favourite book or your daily journal and enjoy the simple pleasures of life - don't get to the end of your life and find that you have just lived the length of it. You want to have lived the width of it as well.

 

The pleasures of life!

A cup of coffee and one of my Nature Journals – two of the great pleasures of life! I’ve been journaling since child-hood, when I wrote about and sketched little things I found in the garden, about my pets, and important dates like friends’ birthdays and little poems I would add to birthday cards I made for them. When I became a teenager, my journals were my solace for broken hearts, my miseries and joys and ‘important’ happenings in my life, always accompanied by sketches, collages and leaves and grasses I found in nature.

In later life my Nature Journal recorded dates and sketches of my animals, the plants and insects in my garden and any interesting info I learnt along the way. I found the coffee to be important during ‘thinking’ spells, always reaching out for the cup when I paused in thought. And oh! how many times don’t I put my paint brush in my coffee in stead of the water bowl, adding a bit of interest to the sketches!

In the noisy confusion of life...

… keep peace in your soul

It’s been so long since I’ve taken the time to just sit and read.
Curl op on the sofa with a nice cup of tea and just read.
I’ve realised that it’s a choice I made and that I now have the choice to rectify this.
Just another gift to be grateful for.

::

Wishing you a week filled with time to read.

Is a bookshelf just a bookshefl?

Beware of the person of one book. 

–Thomas Aquinas

Is your bookshelf “just a bookshelf”? Somewhere for your books to be shoved into together with some other odds and ends you don’t have place for?

How about beautifying your bookshelf? Books are objects of beauty and look great displayed with some of your favourite objects. It doesn't matter what sort of bookshelf you've got, it doesn't have to be an expensive wall-to-wall creation, but what does matter is what it looks like. Newly married in the early 70's and with not much money, a large, fancy bookshelf was out of the question, but my books needed a home. They were suffocating in the boxes. A few wooden shelves and some bricks solved the problem and also provided space for some of my treasures that I'd collected as a young girl.

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Show off the things you love and a plant goes a long way to enhancing the look of your bookshelf. And something green and living gives your books someone to talk to! lol! (Just remember to put a holder under the plant so that no water leaks onto your shelf!) A few well-placed baskets with lids look beautiful on the shelves and also solves the problem of all the stuff we need to put down somewhere until it can get sorted out.

Books are a thing of beauty, almost sacred in my eyes, and shoving them around is similar to crumpling up money in your pocket or purse - how can the Universe supply if you have such disregard?