Bookshelf Vanity

It's a real challenge fitting two people who have 20-plus years worth of stuff lying around into a single bedroom, but between throwing out, donating, his family's storage unit, and getting really creative with the way we set up, we've managed to do so. For the most part. We still have some clutter we're working on.

The last time we tried to rearrange our room to accommodate two people, my husband and his friend tried to move a six shelf bookcase with all of the books, including my hardbacks and a TON of my husband's Shonen Jump and Game Informer magazines, still on it.

This was not a hardwood bookshelf. It was from WalMart or Target and couldn't handle the pressure. And the result may have been exactly what you're picturing right now: a disaster. The bookshelf broke in half, the top three shelves and the bottom three shelves separating, spilling books EVERYWHERE. I had a heart attack. My Harry Potter hardbacks, my collection of Rob Thurman's paranormal Cal Leandros series SOME OF WHICH WERE BORROWED from my best friend.

Thankfully, none of the books were damaged. We were, however, now limited to the bottom half of the bookcase, which was still intact. We crammed books in the best way we could to keep them out of the way. We moved out, clearing the room, then moved back a few months later with a new opportunity to make the room nice.

We bought a new six shelf-er from Target when it was on sale which now holds most of our books quite comfortably

and we had the extra three shelves. We still had all of our yearbooks, my husband's hardback gaming walkthroughs, and all of my cosmetology text books from beauty school to put somewhere, so we used the bottom shelf for that considering how heavy they all are as a group.

The top two shelves I'm using as my own. My husband has his own makeshift-entertainment center-shelf set up in the living room.

The middle shelf holds the hair products I don't run to first, my wax machine tools without the wax machine (it spilled while the wax was still a liquid and it ruined the whole machine), and my various developers that I use for personal hair color.

The top shelf holds the makeup that is too big to sit on the top like my palettes and anything that isn't regularly used. The first container (on the left) is eyeshadow, the middle holds anything else, and the third container holds my hairbrushes. To the right of that are my first-choice hair products and the products I use most often.

Where we really got lucky is what used to be the fourth shelf up. The bottom is still there and works perfectly as another surface. This is where I put the makeup I use most often: my lipsticks and glosses, eyeliners, mascara, brushes, hand sanitizer, primers, foundation, a mirror. You get the point.

It keeps me organized AND gives me a place to do my makeup next to a window, rather than near artificial lighting. I'm a shorty, only 5'0, so it's the perfect height for me. It also keeps the bathroom clear of all of my hair products, which makes my husband a very happy man. He absolutely hates when the bathroom counter is cluttered (always my stuff. Seriously). It also keeps them all upright, which makes ME a very happy woman, because I hate putting them on their sides in a drawer. It's a mess waiting to happen that has proven itself in the past.

It's not really conventional, but it definitely works for us right now.