Where do we put the library?

Books may be a window to another world, but they are also, in quantity, heavier than a heartache. Lift a crate of them and your back will hate you for weeks. And then there’s the problem of what to do with them. Floor to ceiling shelves with one of those ladders that slides along, in a room with a deep window seat where you can sip tea and read would be nice. But who has the space?

That’s how our library came to be in the basement. We shared boxes and boxes with the Pequot Library for their annual sale, then searched for a home for what was left. My husband is a book lover with an academic bent. It took some persuading that the England Theological Library could live safely and conveniently in the land of the furnace and the washer-dryer, but it works. Thanks to Connecticut Basements and their French drain and dehumidifier, it’s dry and, although still semi-finished, not sheet-rocked and carpeted, it’s painted and clean. IKEA shelving units and a day or so spent organizing a few hundred volumes by subject and author, and now we can actually find what we’re looking for. We drink tea elsewhere.