A matter of inches. More books!

I have opened 5 different stores, I've doubled the space of 2 stores, I've done a pop-up store.

I've closed 3 stores. The last store I closed--Redmond--I had to pretty much do it myself, leveraging and lifting more than I should. I literally gave myself a hernia. (There are only so many times you can ask people to help you--same goes for asking friends to buy your books...) Linda's store was bought as is--though the new owners pretty much changed everything. I ended up buying back the bookcases, which--again--was almost the same as closing a store.

In other words, it's a lot of work.

I'm very happy with my downtown store, except that I've been out of room for years now. I waited for decades for downtown to take off like it has. We are doing well with the tourists, especially with new books and graphic novels.

So the focus has been on buying product than I can actually fit into my store. Mostly, this means the product has to be stackable--such as games, books, jigsaw puzzles, that kind of thing. I have wall space above the seven foot range which is suitable for toys--probably only suitable for toys.

So the mix is pretty good.

Anyway, the point of this is that I'm scrounging for space. Inches of space. Yesterday I started a little renovation I've had in mind for awhile now. I'm replacing the two used bookcases with bookcases suitable for new books. (We are done with used books.)

Originally, I thought that's all I would do, which would have been work enough. Boxing up all the books, carrying the bookcases downstairs, bringing new bookcases up, putting everything in order. But yesterday I realized that I could squeeze a few more inches out of it.

I have two sizes of bookcases. One size is three inches wider than the other.

I decided to replace four of the smaller bookcases, for a 18 extra linear inches per case; a grand total of 72 inches of linear space. It's a lot of work for just a few inches of shelves, but every inch counts. My store is completely packed, from top to bottom.

As it happened, an outward display in the store fell down on a kid who was trying to climb it the other day. Sabrina took the fixture downstairs. Rather than risk that happening again, I decided to put another bookcase in its place.

The end result is that I have equivalent of four new bookcases.

One is going toward expanding our mystery section. Two are going to be dedicated to non-fiction books. And one is going to be used for graphic novels and art books.

Every time I do this kind of ergonomic reorganization, I swear I've reached the limit. But there always seems to be another inch or two to be found if I think about it long enough.

Hopefully, there will never be an earthquake, because we'd be buried.