111 ☆ step 1 of 1000 of my decluttering project

[tinkaton]

I acquired a new bookshelf over the weekend! It's just a cheap Ikea shelf basically made entirely of particleboard but the most important part is that it was free lol. I spent a while cleaning off the smaller shelf I wanted to replace and everything was soooo dusty because I literally never touch anything on it. Like solid layers of dust lmao it was bad!! But I cleared everything off it and put the new shelf in its place so now I have two large shelves instead of one large shelf and one small shelf. 🥳 I'll probably try to make space for the small shelf somewhere but that's a project for later.

The problem now is that I don't know how I want to organize anything lmao. I have a shit ton of manga from middle school/high school taking up space that I should probably get rid of, but I don't want to. 😩 But also 20 volumes of Fruits Basket takes up a lot of space!! (Also pissed at my younger self for not buying the last few volumes of several series like Fruits Basket back when they were released.) I guess I can start with the stuff I was never super attached to but I know that will leave me with more books than I should be holding on to haha.

I did also buy some book easels and a cheap plastic tiered display shelf so I'll finally be able to display some of the figures and special editions of books I just have stacked in a huge pile because I had no shelf space. It's hard being a maximalist with no room to put anything!!

Oh I almost forgot, for people who have a lot of trinkets and figures and stuff displayed, how do you keep it all clean? I haaate dusting but I cannot let things get as bad as it was on that small shelf after not touching it for years. Do I just get an actual feather duster and bat at all the figures every so often or what lmao.

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>The problem now is that I don't know how I want to organize anything lmao.<<

Some possibilities:

With a whole new bookcase, you could use that as a staging area to clear out other places and give yourself more room to maneuver.

You could eyeball your books or other collections to estimate if you have a set that would fit that bookcase pretty closely.

Don't be afraid to just start and stick something in it. If you don't like it later, you can always change it then.

>> Oh I almost forgot, for people who have a lot of trinkets and figures and stuff displayed, how do you keep it all clean? <<

For things that are fragile or have fussy details, I use glass-front cases. We've got a china cabinet and a set of barrister bookcases. My parents have some figurines in a tall glass case too. This minimizes dust buildup so they only need occasional care. Though to be honest, I also have some things out in the open and just ignore the dust most of the time. If you want to reduce dust, enclosed space is your friend. Plus with small, light figurines you can find cases meant to hang on the wall, which gives you more space.