Books - Petaluma,CA

Sometimes on Craig's List or Freecycle you can find used shelves that would look great with a fresh coat of paint on them. Or, like the other moms said, Ikea is always good. What has worked for me is to pare down the number of books that are on display at any one time. You can rotate some off of the shelf and into a box (for instance, if you have Christmas books, you don't need those out in the middle of summer). I started doing this when I realized that my kids tend to have about 10 favorite books at any one time, and the rest of the books just tend to get scattered all over the floor for me to pick up later. =) So, now they have no more than 20 books on their shelves at once so they still have a good selection to choose from, and I put the rest in a plastic bin on the top shelf of the closet. Then whenever I think of it, I put some away and add more to the shelf. Keeps things interesting for them and isn't such a nightmare to clean up every day. Just a thought!

Ikea has these shorter, four square shelves that we use. We put baskets in them and then we can just pull them out.

Maybe that shelf with the toy box has outlived its usefulness? Ikea is a great place for kids' furniture, especially. It's cheap, too. I would personally just browse Ikea and look for solutions there.

I like a bookshelf because you can see all the books. If you put them in baskets you won't be able to see them all.

You could get the storage crates that look like milk crates and stack them on top of eachother. If it does work for your satisfaction, then zip tie them together so they don't fall off of eachother. I used to put the opening facing me so they didn't have to be lifted off of eachother. They used to come in colors at walmart, i have also seen them at ikea.
W. M

Why not put the baskets on the book shelves? When she wants to get into the books, you can lift down the baskets for her.