More Decluttering - People Actually Get Rid of Books?!?!

Because I like decluttering my house and I live with people who like to keep me busy by cluttering up the previously decluttered,  I spend a lot of time reading about organizing.  Lately a lot of people online have been talking about "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up".  I was tempted to buy it but there is so much online about it, I don't feel like I really need to.

I followed along as people on You Tube purged their clothes.  Easy - I do this on a regular basis anyway.  I even went through my daughter's clothes (with her help, I didn't just get rid of her clothes on my own!).  She was able to get rid of 75% of her pants!  We condensed all her stuff from 2 closets down to one and emptied 2 dresser drawers.

Then everyone online started doing their make up and jewelry collections.  I only have a couple pairs of earrings, 2 necklaces and one bracelet so that was unnecessary.  I also have only one basket that holds all my make up but, for a laugh, I went through it and actually found some things to get rid of.

Not sure why I was digging around these items everyday to get to the things I actually use.

But then it came to books.  I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to get rid of books, ever.  Right?  That has to be a rule somewhere.  I love my books.  I love reading them, I love holding them, I love looking at them.  (I also talk about my love of books in my birthday post.)  We have bookcases in almost every room of our house.  In the family room I keep my old hardback books which I use as decoration (I have actually read all of them).  The other bookcases are hidden away in spare rooms and the basement.  I ran out of space quite a while ago and slowly started filling the computer room closet, hall closet and my bedroom closet.  I was considering buying more bookshelves but then I was forced to admit that I probably didn't need to keep all these books.

A couple weekends ago, I grabbed a bag and quickly looked through my books.  I was shocked that I was able to relatively quickly and painlessly come up with 4 bags of books that I didn't think I'd ever look at again.  Then I had my daughter go through her one bookcase and she came up with 4 more bags.  Hers was a little easier because she is 18 but still had books in there for 3rd graders.

My husband is not a reader but when he saw what I was doing, he immediately protested.  Turns out he likes having the books around, just to look at apparently!  I promised him that the bookshelves would still look quite full and that I wasn't touching any of the old, hardback books in the family room.

Then the question was what to do with the books.  We found a group called Better World Books.  They resell what books they can and donate others to libraries, schools and hospitals.  A portion of the money they raise goes to help various literacy programs.  I did some research and felt pretty good about them so that is where our 8 bags of once loved but no longer needed books went.

So far it seems that I have survived although I do have an urge to buy more books!