Contain Your Shelf: Bookcase Decorating Ideas

You don't have to be an avid reader to own a bookcase. Bookcases are a stylish and decorative storage solution that can fit almost any room of your home. Because they come in a wide range of sizes, a low-profile bookcase in a hallway is a functional yet trendy way of managing clothing items like mitts, hats and scarves. Or how about a corner bookshelf in the kitchen as a handy place to store those cookbooks you use the most? Dust off your ideas about those dusty bookshelves in your local library; when decorating with bookcases, the possibilities are endless.

Decide on the Location

Decide on the location of your bookcase. Measure the area where the bookshelf will be going. Especially if it will be in a high-traffic area such as a hallway, living room or family room, check to make sure that the bookcase will not impede traffic floor, be in the way of opening/closing doors, etc.

Decide on the Purpose

Choosing a focus or purpose for your bookcase might also play a part in the style, size and type you end up buying. Bookcases equipped with baskets provide easy and effortless storage solutions for a front hallway or a living room. In a basement room or family room, bookcases with baskets or cubbies are ideal for storing crafting supplies, games or toys.

Bookcase Decorating Tips

Place baskets or organizer trays in one or two shelves of a bookcase in a guest bedroom.

Have a bookshelf you no longer use? Paint it a different color and repurpose it. Who can't use extra shelving in a laundry room, the garage or on an enclosed porch or sun room?

Bookcases make a great economical alternative to a china cabinet or a curio. Use one in a living room or dining room to display collectibles.


- E.L.

Up and Down the Aisle

Being a fairly frequent globetrotter with fast-twitch fibers always poses problems on long international flights. Those of us who find it nearly impossible to sit still for a half an hour, much less 9 or more of them, often have no other reprieve to offer our restless legs than walking up and down the narrow aisle of the airplane. I’ve been known to speed walk around the baggage carousel upon arrival with an unabashedly relieved look on my face.

Every time I see a driveway with two cars sitting outside a 2-car garage, I can’t help but assume their garage looks like what my folks’ used to. There’s no way either car would be located in there, and in fact there was no unclaimed space save an aircraft cabin width-like aisle that moved from the door to the far wall. If yours is similarly cluttered and constrained, a visit to Cymax Stores is long overdue.

I made the association after one of my brief returns from Asia years back, when my mother suggested I place some of my left-behind belongings in the garage as my room was in a state of disarray unbecoming of the “guest room” it now was. As I took an armful of items through the garage door, there I was again. I remember having kind of a strange recent deja-vu feeling as I negotiated the narrow strip, deciding where I would pile my stuff on top of the mixed strew of items that belonged in the garage and the majority that would normally be inside the house.

I was making my way from end of the 747 to the other all over again, albeit with the uniform rows of cramped seats replaced fallen-from-favor furniture, tools of all sorts and more non-descript boxes than you could count.

The pant-wearing one (will leave unnamed) of the two put an end to the mess shortly thereafter by means of a large garage sale. However, if you’re similarly overrun in your garage with little to nothing you’re willing to part with, do visit Cymax Stores. An Ameriwood Garage Wall Cabinet is an affordable and space-efficient means of beginning to restore order. An Ameriwood Tool Hutch is similarly practical way to keep your crescent wrenches and the like off the floor and easily located when you need to perform an oil change in the driveway.

I remember a friend who compared the chaos of his father’s garage to the Death Star trash compactor. What a great and yet decidedly uncomplimentary image, almost as if you could see Chewie picking up an inoperative weed whacker right before a tentacle pulls Luke down into a mound of semi-full peat moss sacks.

Prevent your kids from likening your garage to the refuse pit of an intergalactic space station with any one of the Ulti-MATE storage cabinets that offer extensive storage capacity and the durable thermo-fused PVC laminate exterior needed to survive in such a tough environment. Adjustable shelving means you might even be able to tuck a few of those contents-unknown boxes in there as well.

And for those who are content with the clutter, be sure not to impede the beverage trays.

Filing It Away for a Rainy Day

At first glance, file cabinets might seem like the most boring pieces of office furniture around. But consider this: remember the last time you spent 20 frustrating minutes searching for a document only to discover that it had “just” been misfiled? A good filing cabinet, chosen specifically for your work environment may be the best way to protect yourself against loss or misuse of the data that is so valuable to your business. At More Filing Cabinets we can help.

Maybe we won’t be able to protect you entirely from well-meaning employees, but you will be able to find a wide variety of file cabinets, in different sizes and configurations, with or without locks, that will meet your high standards as well as your business requirements. File cabinets can be as simple and uncomplicated as your standard letter size vertical metal cabinet with two or more drawers to fireproof lateral filing cabinets that are as strong as a safe.

Before buying a file cabinet for your office, consider what you will be using the cabinet for and the features you want it to have. Do you work with blueprints or survey maps? A roll file cabinet would be a good choice. However, if you’re buying a file storage system for a doctor’s or dentist’s office, stackable, lateral filing cabinets will give you plenty of room and allow for future expansion. Think just because you have a small business, you might be able to get away with storing any important papers you need in the top drawer of your desk? A standard file cabinet that can accommodate both letter and legal sized files will get you organized and give you confidence in knowing that documents vital to your business are safe and secure.

Lateral file cabinets do use more floor space than vertical file cabinets, but one lateral file drawer can hold more files than a standard vertical file drawer. Lateral filing cabinets are generally more versatile since they can accommodate both letter and legal sized folders in the same drawer. Keep in mind, that the files in a lateral file cabinet will face the side of the cabinet instead of directly facing the person opening the drawer.

While you may not have the resources for a storage safe with an inch-thick complex steel lock, a well-designed file cabinet should still provide you with enough protective features to give you peace of mind. Many types of office filing cabinets have a single-lock system that locks all the drawers. Some kinds of locks will lock one drawer, usually the top one, only. If this will be a concern, ask how the file cabinet security system works before you make a final decision.

Whatever your filing cabinet needs, More Filing Cabinets has file storage solutions suited for a variety of work environments as well as for the home office.