Decluttering Your Books This Winter: Let Your Books Find a New Home

The evenings are still gloomy and cold but leaning into February, its initial darkness and eventual hopefulness, is something we can enjoy.

And... it's a perfect time to declutter your books. I love books. I love the look of them, the feel of them and the smell of them. I read a lot. I probably get through a book a week and there is no way I could store that number of books so I have an e-reader for my daily reading.

The books on my shelves are books that I can pick up with a cup of tea or over breakfast, books to flick through and learn from.

I have decluttered of a lot of books over the years. Recently we redecorated our children’s bedrooms which involved putting all of their books into boxes. Six months later they are still in boxes! They have outgrown most of them so it’s time to go through the boxes, re-live the memories of the wonder of story and then gently let them go.

Books should be read not stored.

Their words don’t mean anything if no one reads them. There is no reason they shouldn’t be read again if you pass them on to family, friends, charity shops, reselling sites, libraries, school, nurseries, community centres, cafes, book swaps…

When my children were born I was really excited to buy a Winnie-the-Pooh set for them as I had such fond memories of reading the stories and poems as a child. However, my children never loved them as much as I did, and that’s ok. It’s time to let them go to someone else. Time to keep my memories for myself and let my children make their memories with their own favourite books.

My husband inherited piles of books from his family. Over the years we have got rid of some, moved some from house to house but rarely opened them. Most were out of date and they were taking up precious space that we needed for books we loved.

We had a chat about why we were keeping them and realised that it was the visual aspect that was important. He remembers the covers, the graphics, the colours from his childhood. We checked on selling sites and found they didn’t have any value, we knew the information was out of date so the words weren’t useful. We decided to keep the covers and frame them.

It was the memory that was important not the physical book.

My happiest moment this month was finding a set of bookshelves that fitted behind my sofa. I finally have space for books again. Now when I walk into the room the books are the first thing I see and, for me, that's what makes it feel like home.

If you need some help with gently letting go of your books and decluttering this winter then please get in touch.