Our library!

We bought our first house in July of last year. It's a newer house and was in great condition, but like pretty much everyone who ever buys a house, we had a million ideas for things we would change after we moved in... most of which will probably never actually get done.

One of the first rooms you see when you walk into our house is a room that maybe was supposed to be a formal living room, but it's really small for a formal living room. Also, we're not really formal people, so we have no need for a room with the word "formal" in front of it. The people we bought the house from used the room as a music room:

Music room/Formal living room

A music room is a great idea if you actually have any musical instruments, but since we only have one guitar that neither of us really knows how to play, our music room would've been super lame. So I Googled "what to do with a formal living room" (Google knows everything), and everyone suggested making it a library, and I was like, "OH MY GOSH, DAN!! LET'S HAVE A LIBRARY!!!" Because reading is my favorite thing ever. (Let's ignore the fact that although reading is my favorite thing ever, I was apparently unable to come up with the concept of a library on my own.)

Anyway, the library has been a year-long project, and it could still use some more stuff on the walls, but it's totally my favorite room in our house, so I had to share.

You can click on all of these pictures to see them larger. Just so you know...

We got the bookshelves soon after we moved in. My dad helped me assemble them, and my mom helped apply wallpaper (that I spent weeks hunting for) onto the backs of the shelves. And then it came off after the wallpaper paste dried. (Apparently you can't use wallpaper paste on whatever that cardboard stuff is that they put on the backs of shelves. Just FYI.) I reattached it with scrapbooking glue dots because I was fed up and just wanted the project to be over. But once the backs were hammered onto the shelves, the wallpaper couldn't go anywhere.

Then for a year, we had shelves and books in the room and nothing else, because it turns out that I'm very indecisive when it comes to chairs. Dan even gave me a home-made gift certificate for chairs for Mother's Day (which was hilariously worded and the sweetest thing ever) and I still couldn't figure out what chairs I wanted. Then I was talking to my friend Teri, and she was like, "Oh, I just assumed you'd get big, comfy white chairs with blue pillows." And of course, that was exactly what the room needed. So if you need decorating advice, ask Teri. Unless you don't know her. In that case, I guess you're just out of luck.

We found the chairs at Ikea (and the story of the two trips we took to get them could be a blog post in itself), and while white might seem like a stupid color for a house with a toddler boy, the covers are removable and machine washable.

I still need something on the wall above the chair by the window and something else to the left of the bookshelves (so if you have ideas, please share!) but my current decorations include a key wall hanging/picture frame that I made yesterday and am ridiculously proud of:

I'll make a tutorial of how I made it soon (even though it was embarrassingly easy,)
but this post is already getting too long.

A framed quote that says "Children are made readers on the laps of their parents." that is hanging above a basket of Lucas's books (I bought it here on etsy):

I feel like this needs something else hanging under it. Either that or a short bookshelf. Any suggestions?

And some framed pictures of Lucas reading:

Also, various other random items that I don't feel like listing.

So that's my library! Like I said, the walls need some more oomph, but it's taken over a year just to get it to this point, so I can't really count on it ever being a whole lot better than this. Unless, of course some of you recommend awesome things for me to hang on my walls! So... get busy!