I may be ridiculous, but I am well read

Our realtor gave us some ideas of where to declutter the house so that potential buyers aren't distracted by small things...like that huge stack of crayons on top of the china cabinet. Utilitarian? Yes. A bit of an eye-sore? Also yes.

However, Jason and I are a bit conflicted on areas that need decluttering...

Him: We should take all the books off the [built-in] book shelf in the living room.

Me: Well, not all the books.

Him: Most of the books.

Me: Some of the books.

Him: We need to highlight the space of the book shelf.

Me: But I want the people to know we read good books.

Him: ...

Me: Otherwise, they'll think we don't read.

Him: ...

Me: It says something about who we are.

Him: You are ridiculous.

Me: True.

***

So today, I'm boxing up books. I'll box up the Grisham; I'll even box up the Shakespeare. But I'm definitely leaving the L. M. Montgomery and the Amy Tan. Oh, and the Salman Rushdie. I better keep the Austen out too...

Comments

[Sarah]

you are funny. your backyard sounds splendid! thankfully nobody offered to have you put the books in backwards, so just the pages are showing to give even less clutter look? design can get so out of control :)

[alyssa]

Poor books... they cry out from the boxes, "Don't forget us!"

[Rachel]

You are too funny!!! I love that you want to make sure people know that you are so well read! You have such a great house...I'm sure it won't matter how many books are on the bookshelf...but of course I'm not the expert.
It sounds like you have been doing a lot of work lately...I really don't want you to leave too soon, but I do hope it sells quickly!!

[Sam]

"It says something about who we are."

I am so with you on this. I even ended up shifting all of my childhood books to a certain bookshelf (and they take up the whole thing) so that they wouldn't be mixed up with other things...because, you know, I didn't want for people to think weird things when they saw my beloved childhood books, all battered and well loved, amongst the "grown up" stuff.

One time I even moved a book out of my living room - it had the word "bitch" in the title and I didn't want my friend's daughter to see it. I figured it would probably scandalize her!