Nesting

Last week we took a trip to Ikea on the hunt for a new bookcase. The area in mind is pictured above how it is now, and on Instagram you can see how it was before. We had a short black bookcase that has now been moved into our art studio/home office. 

It took some convincing, but I finally persuaded S that we needed a white bookcase to brighten up this space. It's on a wall with 2 windows and our sliding glass door, so light never directly hits it. Our items definitely needed some encouragement like a white base in ordered to be displayed beautifully. 

In the second photo, you can see one of our favorite oddities: a blackened deer antler. It's the only dark deer antler that we have, and we have over 25 pounds of antlers. Most antlers become white by being naturally bleached by the sun. On a lower shelf, with our coyote skull from Evolution on our last trip to New York, we have a bowl of antlers - displayed like most antique shops display their antlers. Holding up our animal skulls are some of my favorite cook books like Jamie At Home and on the other shelf, my favorite decorating books by Sibella Court.  

No book shelf would be complete without a David Sedaris book. It's accompanied by my blue morpho butterfly that I got on my trip to Costa Rica a few years ago, our sea horse skeletons from the sponge docks, and under a bell jar is an abandoned bee hive. I have such a love for abandoned items like antlers, bee hives, and theme parks. There must be something inside of me that wants to take them home when I can and help the items keep their worth for one more generation. 

Another favorite item displayed proudly on this shelf is our old tube radio. We found it at an antique shop and it sounds as beautiful as I imagine it did years ago. It's the kind of radio that takes a minute to warm up. We'll turn it on and then go into the kitchen to make dinner. Slowly, in the background we'll hear the voices of visitors, forgetting that minutes ago we tuned into NPR. It has such a deep and warm sound which makes it my favorite old radio that we have (we own 3!).

Next to our new bookcase is our little old piano, the only kind of piano that fits inside of a 2 bedroom apartment. Atop the piano is a bust of Chopin (fitting, no?), sea urchin spines with another sea horse, an old map, and a pile of old books that S once gave me as a gift. 

I feel like all of our items are displayed much more proudly in this bookcase. In the previous black one, the items got lost and ignored. This is a way to show off all of our favorite items, our own little cabinet of curiosities.