Organizing For the New Year -- Lesson Learned

This past summer, I participated in The One Room Challenge and redid our family room/den.  The bookcases above are the after.

Here are the bookcases before.  Notice how many more books were in the cases?  What you can't see in the photo are all of the books that were in the cabinets below the shelves.  I mentioned last week that we are working to purge and organize at our house.  One of the things we did was go through all the books to determine which to keep and which to sell at Half Price Books.  Book purging is really hard for us.  We love books.  However, we are being serious about not having things in the house that we don't need.  After packing all of the non keepers in boxes, the entire back of my SUV with the backseat down was full and my husband set off for the book store.  I had no idea how much money Half Price Books would offer us for all of those books, but I did know for certain that if I were to purchase the same books there it would be well over $1000.  A couple of hours later he texted to tell me he was on the way home and he had $40 for the books. 

So, the lesson I learned is this.  Enjoy shopping at Half Price Books.  The selection can be fascinating and there are incredible bargains.  But, I won't be using them in my next book purge.  While I understand they're running a business, I'd rather donate my books to Goodwill or Salvation Army.  What do you do with all of your old books?

I hope you are enjoying your weekend.  We're still purging and organizing over here!