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What is on top of your Bookcases?


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I'm sitting next to a tall bookcase right now.

 

The top holds:  a lamp, my knitting basket, a couple of small IKEA storage boxes with pens and other small office supplies, and a paper cutter.  The other tall bookcase has a lamp and some blocks that spell "Welcome."  (It is on the wall facing the front door.) 

 

The short bookcases have more books on top. 

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We have a gazillion books shoved into one of those huge steel shelving units; its top shelf holds more books.  Function over form!

 

Three of our bookcases are cube units.  Two of them are stacked on top of each other, and on the top of the top one are nice pop-up books that I don't want little fingers to destroy, and magazines in holders (mostly DH's trade magazines that he wants to keep).

 

The other cube unit has storage box thingies for DVDs and CDs.

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We have a gazillion books shoved into one of those huge steel shelving units; its top shelf holds more books.  Function over form!

 

Three of our bookcases are cube units.  Two of them are stacked on top of each other, and on the top of the top one are nice pop-up books that I don't want little fingers to destroy, and magazines in holders (mostly DH's trade magazines that he wants to keep).

 

The other cube unit has storage box thingies for DVDs and CDs.

Cube unit? What is that?

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In girls' room: dolls

In study: framed pictures, vases

In LR: 3 Meissen plates that were my mom's

In dining area (it's really a hutch): baskets full of stuff--calculators, bills, office supplies

In MBR: books, clock not wound up

In small entry area outside MBR: box of completed school work, basket of whiteboard markers, pencil sharpener, lamp, jars of pencils

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Dust and clutter! I actually do have a few books stacked on top, as opposed to in row where they could fall over. But most dust.

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Depends on the bookcase (we have about 19 :)). A few actually have nothing (except dust). One in the office has a cushion for the cats, the other our Ott light. In the library, a painting leaning against the wall, some decorative things, and the two low bookcases under the window have our electronic keyboard on top. In my teen daughter's room, no idea (I don't go up there very often and she recently rearranged). In the sitting room (originally formal dining room open to the living room, now has some exercise equipment and the recliner where my daughter does most of her schoolwork), some small teddy bears dressed in medieval outfits that a friend made, along with a small toy cast iron stove my grandparents gave me when I was a child and various other small decorative items. In the living room, the low one has our Athena shrine (small model of the Athena statue in Nashville and the Parthenon, an owl carved in olive wood, etc), and one of the tall ones has our oil lamp and the "Booklover's Repair Kit" box. In our bedroom, two together have some of my husband's music notebooks for choir and some extra school stuff, while the other two have a Summer Fun Cthulhu plush, Pepe le Pew plush, some books, and our Fred the head (a faceless wooden head form) wearing a chainmail coif (made by my husband) with a leather plague doctor mask and a baseball cap that says "Library" (gotten at a lecture by the authors of "Unshelved," a webcomic about librarians).

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Puzzles/toys out of circulation for missing pieces, my injection supplies, a bow, the poster board, the non-washable paints, toys that have been confiscated for misbehavior with them, a fishing pole, a bow and arrows (functional target archery equipment, not a toy), a box which may or may not hold furure gifts or leftover holiday goodies, and a few other things that belong out of kids' reach.

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I keep them empty.

Occasionally the tall people in the house (meaning everyone but me) will put stuff up there to annoy me because I have to get a chair to get things down.

At Christmas dh puts tchotchkes up there & ds lines up all his nutcrackers but otherwise I keep it empty.

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Crystal vases and bowls (wedding gifts) and glass cake plate on the bookshelves in the dining room. Nothing but dust on the one in the living room. More books and holders of magazines on the ones in the den. All kinds of crap on the ones in dh's study.

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The good bookcases in the living room have a large vintage copper birdcage, a small lamp, and a long basket with plants.

 

The family room/ school room have vintage globes, letters spelling "family," and storage boxes in accent fabrics. In the basement hallway, there is a built-in floor to ceiling bookcase that has beadboard and that fits under the stairs. Ds's bookcase has a lava lamp and geological samples and of course, the requisite dust.

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Living room: three picture frames, a small lamp and a stack of paper crap if you know what I mean.

 

Hallway: more books and supplies.

 

My husband's and my bedroom: oh man. Several pictures laying flat that I don't know where to hang, a camera, several things I wanted out of the reach of kids and dust bunnies large enough to mount a coup d'état should I try to wipe them up.

 

My kids several tall bookcases: magazine boxes filled to the gills.

 

I should know better, living in earthquake land. That camera is going to bean me if the big one hits and I am walking to the bathroom off of our room. And paper and glass and magazines will be everywhere.

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A globe, an oversized atlas, a Chinese calendar, sand art, some history books are on top of one shelf. Picture frames and a bunch of other stuff I use for my Latin class on another. My bookshelves are really ikea cube units. I love them!

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MOre books generally.  THe tall one in my livingroom is more for decoration than functionality, it only has a few set of books on it and most decorations, on top of the cubbies I use for science books is our microscope and nature center, on top of every other bookcase in the house is more books.

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Books I'm not currently using, but don't want to get rid of help fill in the top (they're like display case/ book shelves with a built in light we don't use, so it's not just a level shelf on the top).  Then big maps and project boards laying flat.  And lots of dust. 

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Microscope, science supplies, globe, sensory tools (like rice tray, glitter bottle, ...), left over linoleum from our bathroom project, bottles of bubbles, bubble machine, and some other miscellaneous items.  I have tried keeping them cleaned off, but stuff just seems to accumulate again.  Extra books are in boxes in closets.

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It's mostly decorative items on top of our bookshelves. 

 

I have some of the kids' larger homeschool projects that I like to display on top of the office area bookshelves. In the living room, the tops of two bookshelves are covered by my son's nutcracker collection. (They migrated out from his bedroom one Christmas season and never went back.) The other bookshelves are topped with an eclectic collection of stuff that doesn't really fit anywhere else.

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I have 4 bookcases, 2 tall and 2 short.  One of the tall ones doesn't have a top, it's the open shelf kind, but we do have some games and such on it(Jenga).  The other three are in the school room/office and the tall one has a box of rocks/rock hound kit, microscope, see-through telephone from the 80's, a homemade ipod speaker(2 Styrofoam cups and a paper towel tube) and George our pet alligator head (DS HAD to have it while on a trip to Ocala when he was 8) plus a few other odds and ends.  On short bookcase #1 I have 2 card catalog style boxes, a yellow dish to hold all the little things I lose, an Aloe plant, wooden birdhouse and some of my S&P collection.  Shorty #2 has a printer and one of those nuts/bolts organizers.  All the extra books are kept in boxes in the garage until I can afford a house with a library.

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