An Indoor Avalanche

We've had an incident!  I may not have mentioned this before, but perhaps I have....I admit to a pretty overwhelming book fetish.  I LOVE books.  I have a great collection of books on all the things I'm interested and they need a place to live. 

When we lived in the biggest house we've ever lived in, I purchased an IKEA unit to store them in because they had outgrown the other bookshelves I had. This is a photo and link to it as it's the best storage system for books I've found to date!  http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/80208652  

Now, we've moved again, to a smaller house, and that storage unit was relegated to holding fabric in what would, for other people, be the master bedroom!  this left my collection of books with no place to live. 

There  WERE plans.  My dear husband was going to build bookshelves in the extra wide hallway, or on the biggest wall of the living room.  The problem was that I couldn't decide where I would like to have them!  So the plans waited till I made up my mind.  The books remained in boxes. 

But then when we got settled in just a bit, I wanted to refer to one of them and I couldn't find them.  By then Bob was away and I dare not try building so I solved the problem by buying three plastic storage units from Wal-Mart.  I brought them home, assembled them and proceeded to place my books on them.  It was a delightful evening sorting, finding and fondling some of my favorites all over again.  This solution worked well and I still haven't decided where I would really like to have them permanently.....well I have, but I'm not allowed to take over that room too!  So it's now a waiting game! Bob has some idea he should have one room in the house that isn't consumed with my sewing possessions! 

But who would have guessed that these units wouldn't hold books for more than 9 months?  Two days ago I went down the hall into my sewing room and I noticed that the one shelf was leaning out from the wall.  I pushed on it and it swayed dangerously.  I thought I should find something to wedge between it and the wall to hold it in place.  There was nothing around and it was dark out, so I decided that in the morning I would go out and find a piece of 2 x 4 and wedge it into place. 

It wasn't to be.  I was in bed reading a couple of house later and heard a strange sound.  It got louder and more staccatto-like and ended with a clatter.  I got up, looked out my bedroom door into the hall and this is what I found!  It seems the plastic corners that the posts are inserted in separated and split and the books very gradually and gently slumped onto the floor and the broken unit fell on top of them!  No books were damaged at all.   Needless to say I now have the two remaining units braced against the opposite wall in hopes of stalling their demise!

The next morning I restacked the books on the floor, removed the broken plastic, and went straight to my computer and ordered another IKEA unit!  I guess I'll be sorting and purging books some time this fall, an activity I actually look forward to!