update on TV stand

The other weekend I finally moved my books out of my bedroom and into the Ikea bookcase in my spare room.  So exciting.  It also freed up one of my 2-shelf white bookcases.  I have three of these.  In my old apartment, they sat in the window nooks.  Before last weekend, I was using one as a TV stand, one as a lingerie chest in my bedroom and the third held other random books.  But now I don't need that third one for books and since it's identical to the one in my living room, I brought it down and now have my TV straddling to the two.  I'm able to get rid of the stool-as-DVD player-stand, which is so nice, and the width of it all is really pleasing.

Last night I settled down to watch So You Think You Can Dance and fill up the space in the second bookcase. I pulled all of the cookbooks out of the one bookcase and then grabbed all of my colored vases from the kitchen where they're half hidden on a high shelf. The really large green vase I just got on Tuesday at Marshall's - $15! Love it.

I first identified my anchor pieces:  two large vases - the new green one and the amber glass one that's I got at Pier One at least 10 years ago, the black binders full of printed-out recipes and the magazine holder (swiped from my landing strip - in theory it's just a placeholder).  I then arranged my DVDS, cookbooks and smaller decorative pieces around them, moving things around to find the right balance of color, height and weight.  It was a lot harder than I thought it would be - I kept wishing I had SOMETHING else.  But I don't want to sink a lot of money into this since the bookcases themselves are just a placeholder.  So I made do with what I have and I think the final product is pretty nice!

I think my favorite part is being able to showcase some of my decorative items, like the little chess set that was my mom's? my dad's? but has been sitting in a drawer for at least 5 years

Or some of my souveniers, like the teapot with the Bermuda landscape or my Fortnum and Mason tea caddy

There's definitely room for improvement, but I love that it's a move in the right direction.