Top 20 Favorite Books Growing Up

I don't think I've ever done a Top 20 list like this before so I thought it would be fun to see some of the books that I was obsessed with as a kid and maybe even come up with a couple to do a reread of sometime this summer! I know there are going to be some series so I'm just going to list the first book in the series and we'll talk about why I love them so much and that's that I think. For this list I'm going to look at books from middle school and older I think. Basically some of the first books that I remember reading that I was OBSESSED with! Since I read these so long ago not all of them are on my Goodreads, and even some of them on my GoodReads aren't even rated because I read them so long ago and when I did a massive upload to make my shelves on Goodreads to match my actual shelves I marked a lot of books read that I read forever ago so a lot of them have the same read date since I did that, and no ratings. 

I tried to even put them in order from least favorite to most favorite BUT it got really tricky because I kept rearranging and putting the order in different ways so I think I finally got a final list, at least what I'm going with. These are the ones that stick out the most in my mind when I think back, so the order might not be completely accurate. I really tried hard to make it a top 10 list but well it didn't cooperate when I was scrolling through my read books on GoodReads. 

20. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

Technically I guess this book probably shouldn't be on this list since I only read the first couple of books but I really loved it and the only reason I didn't keep up with it was that books later on the list had sequels that I would rather read and my birthday book money could only buy so many books. This is also before we had things like eBooks and OverDrive. Teenage me would have been obsessed with OverDrive, and that may have been already a thing then but not something I had or knew about. I didn't get really immersed in Bookworld until the end of high school. Anyways this was one of my Nook Books that I adored! I became really obsessed with Princess Diaries after the movie came out and could not stop rereading this book so I really have no clue why I didn't continue on with the series. I was really a big series girl when I was in elementary/middle school, and although books were always something I had and loved to do I wasn't a huge reader until high school, but obviously, I still have too many favorites to make only a top 10 list. 

19. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Inkheart was one of the first big books that I remember reading, and this thing is massive! I think I probably read this one right at the same time as Harry Potter or right after. So big books weren't my norm but this one was an obsession too. I loved the world and the concept of this book and even though it was a series to me it was a standalone book because I never read past this first book. Not too long ago I picked up the second and third book so I really want to reread this whole series now, but I don't know about it. I don't know if what I remember about it still will make me love it today.

18. Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo 

I really remember reading this book in 5th grade because it was one of those books that we read as a class, and then we watched the movie afterward to do a book/movie comparison. Anyways I'm a huge animal person and I know I don't talk much about my personal life but I have 4 dogs and a cat in real life and I love them so much. Even growing up I always had animals and not just the normal dogs and cats, I had horses, cows, pigs, chinchillas, guinea pigs, hamsters, and so on. I just loved animals and this book just broke my heart! I still loved it and there are a couple other books on my list that you'll see that they were something that I read in school that really stuck with me today. We also got to keep the books too which was so cool! I still have my copy. 

17. The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks

So this is a book that I read in 8th grade and just loved it! I quickly started picking up Sparks' other work, usually from my mother and I would devour them. Today The Last Song is one of my all-time favorite Sparks books and I reread it from time to time. I really wish I still had this cover! It's one of the books that didn't make the transition to the new home and the version I have now is the movie cover one. I really want to reread this one and do a book/movie comparison with it because it is one of the few Sparks movie adaptations that I don't hate. It doesn't beat the book but it isn't terrible. 

16. Dead is the New Black by Marlene Perez

Another thing you are going to notice a lot on my list is old Shay used to be completely obsessed with this supernatural stuff! Dead Is series is something that I never see talked about and I don't know if it is because they came out so long ago or what but I was obsessed with them. I remember this is one of the first series that I got into the habit of always rereading the whole series whenever the newest book would come out because I just loved them so much, plus they were really short books too.  I also really loved the aesthetic of these books because they were short paperback books that were bright colors and were just always a fun read to me and I loved them until book 6 I think. Book 6 is when the main characters changed and when we shifted away from the main characters that I loved I just couldn't continue on with it anymore, which is only two more books but still almost teenager me was done with it, which is something that adult me still does. I tend to hate when books shift characters, there are a few exceptions to this, but overall don't get me attached to one set of characters just to focus on someone else I mean at least kill the originals. 

15. I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

The Gallagher girls were basically a school for spies in training and it kind of reminds me of vampire academy vibes without any supernatural stuff. I loved this book, and it is another one that is a series that I didn't keep up with, but it is something that I kind of think I want to go back and do a reread of sometime soon and maybe even finish the series out. I just remember being in love with it. It is a young adult book and what's been keeping me from doing is the fact that I loved it so much and I don't think I'm going to feel the same about it now I don't think it will stand up with the times. I think I was in love with it so much because it did give off some Zenon vibes because the main character was all the time getting in trouble and I believe she even gets a secret boyfriend and on Zenon's first movie she comes to earth and falls in love with a guy just to leave him. I know it is nothing alike but to me than the vibes of this book and that movie really felt the same. 

14. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

You know how kids when they behave in a store they get to get a candy bar or whatever at check out? Well when I behaved I got a book, and I remember we went to my favorite bookstore (still my favorite today) and they had the first three books on sale, super cheap, and at the time these were the only three that existed. So I talked my grandmother into getting them for me. I think we got to go because we going to my grandparents' house for a week and I was not happy about it. I was so mad and this was kind of the placate me. I've always been the type of kid that would have to take a bag of books wherever I went and since I was going to my grandparents' house I got to get a new book. Well, that whole week I refused to get out of bed because I was reading. I literally stayed up all night because I was a brat and would barely sleep because I didn't want to be there and these books were interesting so I stayed in bed and read these books. Looking back I don't get why I was being such a brat, but these books were really good and I read all three of them back to back in a span of probably five days. It was the only thing I was doing and by the time I was done, I was so sick that I had to go home. It really wasn't because I was sick of being there I do remember getting really sick. But either way, I was grounded for a while because I was really rude that week, and I don't even blame getting in trouble because I definitely deserved it. However, that wasn't my only all night reading it was just the first. Anyways like I said I didn't know that this trilogy went way on. By the time that I learned that Clare wrote so many more books all based in this world I kind of grew out of it and haven't been able to get back into this world. I think I might give it one more try since I really want to read Magnus and Alec's story so bad, so we'll see. I'm just really getting further away from young adult books and that's another reason I have been putting off rereading some of my old favorites. 

13. Prive by Kate Brian

Man was I hooked on this series! I loved the drama that came with this boarding school and I really wished that I could've gone to boarding school because of the crazy world that was Private. I don't even know why because the girls were all so mean. In middle school, I feel like I had no drama so I loved reading about it because that me really had a very laid back world where if I wasn't in school I was playing softball or at my other grandparents' house where I had horses and four-wheelers. So I loved this series until it got a little weird by trying to add in I think witchcraft. It tried adding in something towards the end of the series that made no sense to me and I really want to say it was some kind of witchcraft and I was just done with the series by then. Which is fine there are some series we just age out of, especially when they are longer series like this. It's on this list because it is something that meant so much to me growing up but overall it isn't something I would ever reread even though I still have the series on my shelves. I kept almost all of these books not just because I want to reread some but also the nostalgia that comes with them and maybe if I ever have kids and they like to read they will have a library of books to pick from. 

12. Marked by P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast

Marked was such a weird series, even for me. But the beginning was pretty good and I remember reading them with my best friend and we would always share the books and talk about them. I think I kept up with them because of her because towards the end I was just so weirded out by the books that I struggled finishing them. I do still have them because I like how they look and I'm a hoarder.

11. Two-Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt

Okay, this is one I've mentioned before on here I think it was the cover for one of the other random posts that I used to do. Anyways I loved this book and I can't remember if I read it in high school or middle school. This is one that I really want to reread. It's about a couple that broke up but still has to go on a cross country road trip and on that road trip they learned the real reason they broke up. I feel like this is something that I would still love today and would love to reread it. It's another book that I never see anyone ever talk about it and it did come out a while ago back in 2007. I also see that there was a companion novel that also pushes me to reread this book to see what my thoughts today would be like, plus I feel like it should be a summer book. 

10. The Clique by Lisi Harrison

The girls in this book were so freaking mean to Clare but the Clique series was so fun to read. I remember spending summers just sitting by the pool with my best friend reading these books and I was just so obsessed with them and how they looked. If I remember correctly Clare was my favorite. She moved from I think Florida to wherever the rest of the girls lived, I believe Clare's family wasn't as well off as the rest of the girls' families, and she even lived in the 'leaders' guesthouse. The girls were all mean to Clare and wouldn't let her in their clique. Again I really don't think if I read these books today I would love them as much as I did then. I mean I was obsessed with these things and I think this obsession was right before Twilight came out so maybe even my first book obsession. But if I read them today I think I would get highly annoyed with it. I mean the girls in here start off  I think in middle school so the drama is really childish and just very catty. Nonetheless, they are still on my shelves, and something I don't ever see me getting rid of unless I have too. 

9. Twilight by Stephanie Meyers

I really couldn't have a list like this without having Twilight on here and I know this came out in middle school, maybe even fifth grade when the first book came out because I remember reading it in sixth grade. Who wasn't obsessed with these books when they came out. Now I loved the movies too. I wasn't really big on comparing books to movies back then so it wasn't a huge deal. But I hated that the last movie was broken into two parts because I know that the last book was the longest and everything but that last book I hated it because it was drawn out! Like the movie I think did so much better but part two. Part one could be shorted and attached to part two, I think. Anyways these books I know I really want to reread because I'm so curious how I will think of them today. I kind of want to do a book/movie thing with all four of them. I might even do that really soon. I just know they won't stand up to how I felt about them then. But preteen/teenager me was OBSESSED! I was team Jacob all the way. I remember getting these knee-high converses that I would have to wear with my best friend to the midnight premieres back when those were big things to do. We would even have our moms take us on school nights because we thought we were that cool. I remember all of this is with the same girl who is still one of my friends today so it's hilarious talking to her about all of these books today for this post. But she totally agrees that they won't stand up today. But we'll just see. I think if I go in with an open mind I hope I'll be surprised. I don't even remember the last time I read them. 

8. Maximum Ride by James Patterson

Back in the day, James Patterson used to write a lot of books for a lot of different ages, I think this is before he started having a lot of cowriters too. I used to be in love with this series and this series was a roller coaster I swear. It was about a group of orphans who had been experimented on and they have these huge wings. Over the span of the whole series, we learn about each one individually, who was doing these experiments and also get to watch them try to be just kids too. This series is what turned me to Patterson because I loved his writing style and the short chapters made it fly by. The thing is with series that are young adults you either have to release them really fast to keep readers involved in the story or have a shorter series. This series has like 9 books in it which again would've been fine if they came out pretty fast after each one, but they didn't.  I remember getting into this series pretty late in the game so I had a little to back read on, which was great because I should've have had to wait so long for the next book which I think they always left off on a cliffhanger and really kept the reader engaged because they were really fast reads. However, the first 8 books came out every year, which I think was perfect because you are able to age up with your reader and still keep them interested in the story. However, the last book I think was supposed to be Nevermore which came out in 2012. Like I mentioned Patterson is a very busy author and has a lot going on outside of this series even back then. I loved his Witch & Wizard and Confessions series that was coming out at the same time or right after this series did. But this series I think kind of fell off track and so many people had issues with how book 8 ended and that book was called Nevermore: The Final Ride originally. That it caused him to go back in and give it a proper ending. It did leave off on a cliffhanger if I remember correctly. So the final book came out a couple years later and by that time I had a hard time getting into it even though I was so excited about this book because I loved this world. I even remember rereading the whole series because it was a while since the 8th book. It was just so weird and then that was it. I still love Patterson's work and I love most of this series but I learned that I need to wait for the whole series to come out to really keep me involved in the series. But even today I refuse to read series back to back because  I don't want to get burnt out on the story.

7. Penelope by Marilyn Kaye

Now, this is a movie book cover that I love! I loved the whole story and the movie. It was just so cute and wholesome. I think I loved it so much because it really gave a twist to one of my all-time favorite fairytales, Beauty and the Beast. This time it is the girl who gets swamped into the 'beast.' Even to this day, I love rereading it and rewatching the movie. I don't think I ever see anyone talk about this one. So this might be a reread I need to do. Now this book came out after the movie so I feel like the two should definitely follow each other identically so we'll just have to see. 

6. Secrets of My Hollywood Life by Jen Calonita

These top 6 books are so hard to rearrange I still keep rearranging them so I just decided that there will be no way that I love them in order because there is just no right order for them. Anyways this whole series by Jen Calonita was so amazing. I remember falling in love with the way they were all written! I loved how there was the mix writing because you got bits of their scripts, text messages, and even articles thrown in and I think this is where my love for that type of thing really started. I adored Kaitlin in the whole series. I know this is where my love for these actress/Hollywood books really started too because it just all fascinates me so much. I think its the undercover stuff too that really got me hooked into this world because I believe Kaitlin pretends to be a normal kid so she disguises herself to go to school and it was just so much fun. Kind of a reverse princess diaries. 

5. Glass House by Rachel Caine

This series really grew up with me. I remember getting these books for Christmas and taking them on Christmas holiday all the time! It even started with getting my first book, which was like this one's 8th book in the series first! I ended up getting the rest of the first and I devoured this series. I was really into supernatural stuff back then and this series even had SHANE! Man, I was obsessed! He was my first fictional boyfriend! The whole series follows a girl who is super smart and ends up in college way young when she meets a group of people who she ends up moving in with off-campus because they were so nice to her. But it turns out that there is so much more going on in this small college town then what she even knows about. I remember I got a little burnt out on the series by the end but again it was because the books didn't really age with me which is crazy because these I think are older YA books.

4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

 

So I really thought this book would come in first because of how many times I reread this series! Harry Potter has always meant so much to me and growing up I would reread them all the time. I know we used to have the audio versions on discs and would listen to them on drives and stuff. When I was younger I remember the later books coming out too, but to be honest they are all younger than me. And this is another one that I would go to the midnight premieres too. This whole world is my favorite book of all time, and if this is a Shay's favorite books of all time I think this would be first. But younger me had a couple more that she was so obsessed with that I couldn't put it first. But I kept inching it up there. I know one's author has been coming under fire lately and I don't condone her actions at all. To be completely honest I totally agree with that conspiracy theory that is going around that says Rowling didn't actually write these books she is just the person that they used as the 'author' on print. Mostly because of her actions now I know people change as they get older so her opinions of the world could've changed too, and I know you might not be able to remember every single detail of all of the books but come on her whole person has changed since these books. The fact that she tries to say that Cursed Child is canon is ridiculous since it contradicts literally everything in the series. Plus books she has published since Harry Potter is either screenplays that were probably written by the person who made the play/movies that she just stamped her name onto, or the one book that she released is completely different! This is the part that really grabbed me into this conspiracy. Her book that she released after Harry Potter is written in a completely different writing style! I get wanting to change the world and story but you wouldn't change the way you wrote, explained things, and so on. So that is where I jumped on the conspiracy that she didn't write Harry Potter. So everything she ever says about the world now I just completely ignore. Plus lately, I feel like they are trying to squeeze every penny they can from Harry Potter by releasing all of these small companion books now such as Fantastic Beasts, Cursed Child, and even the little side books now like they just released a character book where it talks about the characters. Now am I going to be one of those suckers that buy and enjoy all this stuff? Well of course I will! I will always love this world and I would live at Harry Potter world if I could I just think this fandom is really trying to squeeze everything they can out of it. 

3. Evernight by Claudia Gray

Evernight series is another one that is just so aesthetically pleasing to see all stacked up together on my bookcase! I love the bright colors that they have and they just make me so happy to see them. Evernight just like my Harry Potter books is completely falling apart because of how many times I've read and reread it too. I loved Bianca, the vampires, the ghosts, and even the love story in it. It was just a fast pace to read every time. This is definitely something that was so fun to read and will always remain one of my all-time favorite books. 

2. The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong

The Summoning series is about a group of kids who all have these superpowers but they don't realize that until they are put into a home. Basically gave me X-Men vibes a little bit which is my all-time favorites. The first three books are the only ones I ever read because they follow the same people I remember being so mad too! I think the author kind of just gave up on the series which sucks because it was so good! I really wanted to read Bitten too which is another series by Armstrong but I've been terrified to pick it up because I loved the show, I already know it follows different people in each book, but I'm still hesitant because I don't want to be so upset again if I can avoid it and these books should've had an ending.  Like even looking on GoodReads the books end at 3 but I know in the last book they mentioned another book but it was following someone else. I just couldn't do it. 

1. The Frog Princess by E.D. Baker

The Frog Princess is a book we read in fourth grade and it was something that I just could not put down! I loved the book and I had so much fun reading it and then it turned out to be a series! It was just so cute. Fourth grade wasn't my best year either because the teacher was literally so mean to me! Looking back I see that as the year that my creativity was just stomped on so much by an authority person that I still get a little upset that kid me had to endure that. But to be fair I was obsessed with making up stories and they were all about man-eating creatures. Well, these man-eating creatures were all made up of things like I made a man-eating Spongebob story, man-eating Santa Clause, and so on. I don't know why I was just obsessed! It got to the point where the teacher would make us write creative stories and she would tell me if I mention a man-eating creature I would automatically fail! Looking back I feel like that teacher should've helped me express my creativity versus tearing it down like she did. I'm not sure that is what she meant to do but she definitely did and I never mentioned man-eating creatures or even write my own stuff for people to see. But one good thing that came from this class was my love for this book. It was so fun and it was cute to read, and I still have most of the books today.  

Honorable Mention

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

I honestly can't remember what year we had to read this book but I loved it! Winnie was amazing and I so wanted to run away with the Tuck family when I was kid! I had a great childhood but I couldn't help it I just loved this story and this world so much. The movie just cannot compare whenever I watch the movie I have to read the book too.

Books I Hope to Read in July 2020

Since I'm sort of in a reading slump and I haven't had much content coming out lately I thought this would help get me back into the reading mood. I have a huge TBR pile that I'm not really proud to admit of so I think it would be fun to take a minute and look through my shelves and see what all I could potentially pick up this month. 

Let's start with the backlist of Book of the Month books that I have. Last month I did really amazing at reading a lot of my backlist books and I still have more that I can read. I have actually picked up The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver already. It's a Book of the Month that I got a couple months ago and I picked it up and thought I was going to love it and speed through it, I mean I was on such a big reading kick! I was even really enjoying it, but then I got burnt out and haven't really picked it up. I'm debating on picking it back up or picking something new up soon. I'm kind of waiting on my July box to get here because I really want to read another Sager book, and this might be why I can't pick this one up since it is so different from Lydia Bird. I have multiple different books that I would love to pick up and read, and that is also another part of the problem because I can't stay interested in just one book. 

With that piece above I already mentioned that I would love to read another Sager book, and I honestly have Home Before Dark already sitting on my shelves and The Last Time I Lied will be here in a couple days. The only reason I haven't picked up Home Before Dark is that I kind of want to read his books in order now and since I loved Final Girls it makes me really want to read them in order even more now. I plan on getting his third book, Lock Every Door, next month. To be honest, the only reason I didn't get it this month is that I planned on getting Katherine Center's new book as my main book and then Sager's as the add ons, but it turns out that Center's wasn't one of the 5 books so I had to get creative. So next month I'll get the remaining Sage book. I like to get them through Book of the Month as much as possible so that they can match, and also end up on the same bookcase this way since I now have my BOTM books on a completely different bookcase now. 

 

Here is some other Book of the Month books that I have sitting on my bookcase that I'm really interested in getting to pretty soon. There are a lot of them so I'm just going to group them together right now. All of them I'm interested in and was planning to read the same month that I got them, but I just didn't get to them for various reasons but I want to read them still. 

     

As I said this list will definitely get a little embarrassing for me since I have so many books on my TBR pile but these are the ones that I'm most interested in at the moment. I definitely have some more that are on my shelves that I haven't listed. Anyways outside of the BOTM books I have a few more that I'm really interested in right now I just haven't picked them up yet. 

  

I have a bunch of Nora Roberts books that I would love to reread such as my In Death series and Shelter in Place, but I also have a lot that I haven't gotten to yet like the Bridal Quartet and Boonsboro trilogy. So I'm going to leave this here since this is already embarrassing enough. I haven't even made a dent of the books that I'm currently interested in and would love to pick up right now. So maybe July will be the month for all of this! 

Book Case Building

I've been wanting to show off my bookcase since I've finished building it but first I didn't have books on it, then it wasn't completed, and then I needed to rearrange the books since I added two more shelves to it. Finally, it's done and instead of showing it off completely I kept saying that I needed to clean the living room and straighten up the bookcase before I had a picture good enough to show off to the world. Well, that was back in September and now it is January! So it's time to show off all of the hard work I put into this behemoth of a bookshelf it is.

Since we moved into this house I've been dying to build a bookcase. We had a couple of crates just sitting around the house and I wanted to try building a bookcase out of them, like the ones I saw on Pinterest. My first bookcase only took me a month or two because all I had to do was stain the wood and then screw the crates together. For the first time building anything completely on my own, this was the perfect project! Staining the wood is what took the longest but the end result was amazing! I love the bookcase that I built. This was the summer of 2018.

Crate Bookshelf
(another two crates at the bottom not in the picture)

This last summer (summer of 2019) I wanted to be more ambitious than the previous summer. I wanted to build a bookcase that would span over a whole entire wall! I thought about it for a year and looked through different types of wall bookcases. I thought about buying multiple ones that would fit between the ceiling and the floor or maybe even have custom ones made. Both of these options are so expensive and I would've had to compromise the size I wanted it to be because of the price or not being able to find one that would fill the space. So I started thinking about the previous summer and how much fun I had building my bookcase. I loved building that bookcase and I wanted to be the one that built this one since it was for my library! Then I stumbled upon this picture on Pinterest (picture below), and then I was tagged by multiple people on Facebook of the same type of bookcase. I got to thinking about this bookcase constantly! It looks so simple yet beautiful! I could build my own custom bookcase!

Original Inspiration Picture

Money was tight so my need to build this bookcase went to the back burner. By April we were finally financially stable enough to start branching out on projects such as building a bookcase. I talked to my fiance and family about the different options I had to do this and we all decided that if I wanted to build the bookcase I needed to be 100% sure this was the type of bookcase I wanted and that it would be sturdy enough to hold the bookcase and not pull the wall down. So it was time to start investigating the plans for this bookcase. At this point, I had no clue what material I needed to build this thing, at the time all I knew was that I needed pipe and wood. How hard could it be to build this relatively simple bookcase? 

I started looking at Pinterest to see if anyone had posted the plans that they used and I found the picture above. I started learning the names of the materials I needed such as flange, elbow, and tee. I started getting an idea of how wide the wood needed to be. From here I started measuring walls in my living room to figure out which wall I wanted it to be on and how long it could potentially be. We ended up moving our entire living room around so I could build on the biggest wall available for me. I figured out I had about 17 feet of wall to play with! I was so excited! So with the inspiration from the picture above, I started drawing up plans of my own! I had a general idea of how big this thing was going to be but it wasn't until I made my first trip to Home Depot that I really started seeing how much it was going to cost to build this thing! 

My first trip to Home Depot was so funny because I couldn't find anything! I've been to stores like Home Depot before but I've never gone to just shop I've always gone with my parents or we went for a purpose so I never really just walked around to shop before. This first trip I found the lumber without any issue but do you know how many different variations there are!? I knew before walking into the store I didn't want 20" wide shelves. I just felt like that was way too wide because I wanted to build it around my TV set up I already had. If you think there are a lot of different options for wood then wait until you hear about the pipes and metal stuff! Once I finally found the pipes I was looking for (in the plumbing aisle!) I had to figure out what size pipe worked best for my project. I ended up going with 1/2" pipe which was the cheapest option. I really didn't need anything bigger because there are so many supports going into it. I decided it was time to go home but I bought a couple of metal pieces just to see what it would like and how many pieces it would take. I like visual aids and it helped me see the bigger picture. So here is what I had after the first day of actually putting stuff together.

This was two feet long and the arms are four inches

This piece above showed me that this bookcase is going to be not just wide but also very tall! Another thing that I learned while working with this piece was my bookshelves needed to be wider. The arms on this piece were only 4" long and the tall pieces were 12" long. With the arms here I was able to sit the books on them and I saw that some of them needed a bigger shelf to sit on and in some places I wanted to be able to have the option to sit some extra knick-knacks here and there. So I definitely needed to make those longer but the 12" long ones were perfect! I wanted to keep them this long because it helped make the math side of things easier for me to figure out how many pieces I needed. 

From here I went back to my designs and started chopping them into the imaginary pieces I would need so I would know how many flanges I would need to connect the pipe to the wall, how many 6" pipe I would need for the shelves, how tall the actual bookcase would be, and more importantly how long each piece of wood was going to have to be to fit onto these metal pieces to make the shelves. My final design on paper ended up being 7 feet tall and 17 feet wide. I had the bookcase broken down into 3 different sections, 4 if you count the TV that was already on the wall. The first section was the top part of the bookcase which was going to be the full 17 feet wide. This section was made to fit the whole entire wall and really connect the whole bookcase, TV, and the space in the living room altogether. The second and third sections were going to mirror each other and they were both going to hold 4 shelves each. All of the shelves were going to be 5 feet long. The remaining 6 feet hold the TV stand, TV, and all of my gaming consoles. So this was my final idea that I had back in May so why did it take me so long to finish the bookcase? Well, that's easy, the answer is money. Plus I like to take my time working on this thing because it was so massive and I really wanted it to be perfect. This meant breaking it down into sections and working on it over time. 

The small piece I had in the picture grew. That piece turned into four pieces. This was one of my first sections almost done! At this point, I haven't even bought the wood yet. I was just slowly building my metal pieces and collecting some of the metal pieces that I would need because some were cheaper than the others. For example, I was able to get a 10 pack of flanges on Home Depot's website and this was an amazing deal especially since I needed almost 30 flanges, so I bought two packs with my next check. In June I splurged on my bookcase! I bought my 8 pieces of 2x6 wood, wood stain, my straps, spray paint for my straps! I was so busy for the next couple of days spray painting the straps, staining the wood, and then adding a second coat of stain to the wood! It was a lot of fun and really felt like the bookcase was coming together! Here are some of the fun I had at Home Depot that day along with how much fun it was to finally have a full 7 feet long end piece for the bookcase! 

 

Yes, I stained the wood in the house! It was a very stupid idea but it was so hot outside and this way I was able to work on it before work, after work, before bed, and so on. During this time I worked constantly on this bookcase because I wanted it perfect and it was so relaxing just staining the wood. In the background of the wood staining, you can see that the pieces of connected pipe just hung out behind my other bookcase, patiently waiting to be connected to the wall. After the wood was dry they hung out behind my couch until I had enough metal to hang to the wall. Eventually, my metal bookcase pieces doubled.

Two of the little end pieces

At this time I had enough to put one of the sections up on the wall, and this is where my dad had to come to help me because the stud finder and I couldn't see eye to eye. Another thing that was going on during this time was that I had two end pieces that were going to be the full 7 feet long and then the two pieces by the TV were going to be only 5 feet long. I had an idea for the separate section holders at the top but they weren't connecting to the other 5 feet. I don't know why but I was adamant about this design to the point that this first section was built just like the plan.

As you can see in the image above I finally had some shelving up! I was so excited but I had a design fail. At this time I wasn't seeing it and it honestly wasn't an issue. The pictures hanging on the wall isn't the design fail I'm talking about. I left those up for as long as I could because even though I finally had this first section done it was going to take me a couple more weeks to get the second section up because I needed more metal piping. The design fail is the small leg and you will see where it becomes an issue later on in these pictures. My next step was to finally get my books out of the floor!

Ignore the metal bowl on the floor that's my dogs' water bowl
and I was obviously cleaning for once since
the broom is in this picture! 

The books on this bookcase obviously had no structure to them at all. I really just threw them on there to get them out of the floor of my bedroom and I knew I was going to have to reorganize them after I had the rest of the bookcase finished. Plus even though this picture shows how disorganized and dirty my living room stays all the time I had to include it because look at grumpy Lu peeking around the corner! She is such a grump! I love her!

Finally, the third section was up on the wall! I was so excited that this was finally done and up on the wall. I was so excited that I had to start putting my books up! Literally right after that last screw went into the wall I had all of my books on the floor and I was organizing them by the last name of the author and trying to figure out how I wanted to put them in the bookcase! I was so happy! At the beginning of this build, and even at this point, I was only going to use these 8 shelves to hold books. My top two shelves were going to be for my funkos. But my plan had two big flaws that I was starting to see a little bit here but I couldn't accept it yet.

Yes, that is Secrets of an American Teenager, I was obsessed with it over the summer.

So here was my final result for my bookcase minus the first section. It stayed like this for at least a month if not longer. I didn't have all of my books out there but I had cleared up so much room with just these ones being on there! Even these books were very messy and looked like I just threw them in there. I didn't have much structure with my end caps and middle holders. I definitely didn't have my Roberts/Robb shelf yet, but I was in love with it regardless of the chaos, plus the top two shelves were just for my Funko collection that was hiding out in my bedroom closet. So even though I would've loved to have the bookcase completed I spent my extra money on my wedding that we were planning. At the time my wedding was still somewhat in the beginning stages and weddings cost money so that's where my extra money had to go. Finally, August was coming and school was about to start and I was determined to finish the bookcase! If I had to go back to school then I was tying up some loose ends and one of the biggest ones I had was this bookcase!

Another huge roadblock I was having in completing my bookcase was how in the world was I going to get two 17 feet boards home??? My dad has a truck but 17 feet is still too long for our truck to hold. Or so I thought. The pictures below show our fun journey on getting the boards home from Home Depot, which is only 10-15 minutes away from our house.

We ended up putting the boards through the window in the truck so we could hold them. They also had wraps on the end of the truck bed tying them down and one stabling it into the bed so they couldn't slide out. They are so long! I stained the wood outside like I should've done with the first 8 but by this time it was cooler outside and made it easier to work outside. By this time I had already realized one flaw in the design. Why were the two ends shorter on the inside of the bookcase and the outside ones going all 7 feet? These two shorter sides were up 5 feet tall so why not connect them to the other two feet? So I had to buy a few more metal pieces that were missing and we had to take off the top two pieces of both of the smaller sides and add the remaining two feet to them. Once those two ends were fixed we were able to add the two long shelves, which took 3 people to carry them in, navigate them into the metal racks, and then secure them. All of the racks have metal straps underneath them securing them to the metal pieces so the wood shelves won't move around. Here is the final result, which I just took this picture at Christmas time.

It took me until Christmas to get a picture that I really liked. With four dogs running around I have to dust every day and the sweeping and mopping get done weekly but the room is still never clean. I believe this was taken the day of our ugly sweater party so the whole house was extra clean which made it so easy to grab this picture. Still, the Funkos aren't perfect here because you can see the gap up there but it's the best I've been able to do so far. Obviously, this end result isn't completely the same as my original plans. Originally the top two shelves were supposed to be all Funkos. First I love how it ended up because I have more space for books, the only shelf I don't love is the very bottom shelf on the right because it isn't all that organized compared to the rest. Second, it ended up like this because the second shelf was about an inch too small to hold two rows of funkos but there was too much gap to fit just one row of Funkos. It didn't look right with that gap between the shelf and the Funko. So I have some of my Funkos in there on the very top shelf than more books, but instead of connecting all the way over with books I broke them up with family pictures! I love that even more than my original plan! My OCD kind of went berzerk with the pictures because I have two of just me, two of me and my fiance, two of my family, and two of my dogs! I always smile when I think about that. Since this picture was taken I've added a soundbar to the wall underneath the pictures and above the TV, which was something I didn't plan on doing. Just like the bookcase I originally wanted to mount the TV on the wall to help fill that space some. I was able to get a really good TV mount during Black Friday but while I was thinking about it I came to the conclusion the TV looks perfect in this picture and it hides all of my controllers and wires I have going behind the TV stand so I decided to mount the speaker instead and I mounted the TV in my bedroom. 

I honestly cannot express how thrilled I am to finally have my bookcase completed! I love it so much and every day while I'm in the living room I love being able to look up at my books and see them all 'staring' back at me! I still have my crate bookcase in the living room. It has moved over giving room for my fiance to have his computer desk in the living room as well. My next project is sadly not book related I think I'm going to be ripping up the flooring in my bedroom and laying down some wood floor along with building a big dog kennel for my two dogs that stay with me 24/7. We'll just have to see what happens with that because my original plan is to put the kennel under the TV in the bookcase to hold both dogs but I don't know if 6 ft is long enough for the plans I have. We'll see what happens, I already have a second location in mind. I've learned to just be okay with things that don't always go to plan because it is okay to rearrange plans!