Update: As of August, all of the card catalogs listed have been sold, but don’t despair!  I will be publishing regular lists of card catalogs for sale throughout the country.  To stay updated, please feel free to sign up for Poetic Home’s RSS feed and leave a comment with your location so I can add it to the hunting list.  If you have a library card catalog for sale and would like to be featured, please email me for details.

Many of you asked, and now you shall receive — a regular compilation of library card catalogs for sale across the country!  Volume I of this series focuses on the West Coast, and I’ll make regular rounds traversing all the way across to the East Coast. If you would like for me to scout in a specific state near you, just leave a note in the comments, and I’d be happy to include it in my searches.

If you become the lucky owner of one of these, please do let me know, as I would LOVE to see photos of them in your homes!

In Arcata, California, this 72-drawer library card catalog cabinet on rollers is for sale for only $150!  Call Lee at (707) 407-7194 to snap up this amazing deal. (P.S.  Yes, you are welcome!)  SOLD

In Jackson, California at “Antiques Downstairs,” this vintage industrial metal library card cabinet is for sale for $150.  I’ve never seen a metal one before, and I love the combination of academic aura and industrial edge.  Call Laurie at (209) 418-8254.  SOLD

From the 1950s comes this card catalog with two filing cabinets no less, which was originally used in Chemawa Middle School in Riverside.  This is currently for sale in Redlands, California for $300.  SOLD

And for the greatest steal EVER, snap up this antique library card cabinet for only $40 in Fresno, California!  Call (559) 287-9648 and then give me a share of your first born child as a token of your appreciation   SOLD

In Tucson, Arizona, this three-section 56 drawer library card catalog is for sale for $550.  SOLD

This impressive, dramatically sized library card cabinet is for sale in Redmond, Bend, Oregon for $400.  SOLD

I hope you enjoyed Volume I of Poetic Home’s series of Library Card Catalogs for Sale!

If you find a library card catalog for sale, there are a plethora of ways you can repurpose these literary treasures.  I’ve blogged about a DIY card catalog coffee table and my library card catalog turned bookcase previously, and here are 11 more ways to use card catalogs in your home.   Tomorrow I look forward to sharing a new and fresh way I’ve repurposed one of my card catalogs — and I don’t think card catalogs have been used this way just yet!

I first used my library card catalog as a buffet in my dining room, holding my linens and silverware.  Tanna Clark uses hers for a similar purpose, organizing silverware in her kitchen.

This is one of my favorite uses for a library card catalog!  As a kitchen island topped with a butcher block, the small drawers and labels are perfect for holding and organizing your spices, as seen via DIY Ideas .

For holidays, fill your card catalog with flowers and plants, as seen in a wedding via josevillablog.

If you are like me and have a huge collection of vintage scarves, organize them by color or style in your card catalog, as seen via MadeWell.

Small card catalogs are perfect for storing makeup and cosmetics, as seen via lifeandlim.

Cultivate the naturalist within yourself and use your library card catalog to protect your delicate findings, as seen via Each Little World.

I guess I wasn’t the only one who saw the usefulness of the card catalog as a buffet, as seen via design*sponge.

Indeed, the card catalog makes an ever-so-useful organizer, as seen via Small Notebook.

Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles sisters support themselves by creating beautiful religious works of art, and they store their sewing and embroidery supplies by color in repurposed library card catalogs, via Hooked on Needles.

Could there be a more intelligent way to indulge in your favorite alcoholic beverages?  As seen via Apartment Therapy.

While this may not find a place in your home, reusing card catalogs as a station for the computer-assisted Dewey Decimal system is both ingenious and hilarious, as seen via Library By Design.

What do you get when you combine a group of artists, a library card catalog, and an exhibit at Burning Man?  A Curiosity Cabinet of the Collective Unconscious, of course!  About two dozen artists were each given a drawer to explore the collective unconscious, and the results are quite intriguing.  I would have loved to discover this creation at Burning Man, opening each creatively labeled drawer to discover the world inside.  I’ve picked two of my favorite drawers to share with you, but there are many more photos on the CCCU website.

Artist Treiops Treyfid aptly named his drawer “overwhelmed.”

The Zymoglyphic Museum curator created a “traveling crustacean mini-diorama.”

(P.S.  Thank you for your patience as Library Card Catalog Week turned into a two-week affair and now a month-long extravaganza.  I’ll be wrapping up the posts this week with a plethora of ideas for how you can repurpose library card catalogs, and I believe it will be worth the wait!)

Although it’s been five years since I left the hallowed hallways of Berkeley, the fall always reminds me of the promise of new knowledge.  For the fall issue of UPPERCASE magazine (which you can still enjoy through a subscription), I was inspired by the quintessential symbol of  timeless wisdom: library card catalogs.  Of course, in the spirit of Poetic Home, my article is filled with ideas on how to repurpose these wonderful biblio-antiquities.

Here is a closer look at the current rendition of my most recent library card catalog cabinet find.  It’s a cabinet of vintage curiosities for now, but I’m in the process of repurposing it for the baby’s nursery.

Does the fall remind you of back-to-school nostalgia too? It may be time for me to take a trip to the library this afternoon….

My husband and I are happily celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary this week!  Handmade gifts and treasures have always been a part of our relationship, including our wedding cake toppers above.  My husband made the “mini us,” and I made our canine daughters all out of clay.

This year, I wanted to give him something that we could add to each year as our relationship grows.  Thus, the Catalog of Love was born as a perpetual anniversary gift!

This is an antique wooden library card catalog box that now will hold the chapters of our relationship and life together.  I created faux Dewey Decimal catalog cards, where the book number is replaced by milestone dates, chapters of our love overwrites book titles, and important locations substitute publisher cities.  One day, when we are both old and wrinkled, I hope we will be able to fill the box completely with our life’s chapters together.

If you want to create your own Dewey Decimal cards, which can be used on a variety of gifts, such as birthday cards or present tags, visit the Catalog Card Generator.  I’d love to see what you create!

Apartment Therapy LA was kind enough to feature my repurposed card catalog today.  AT always has great ideas on how to reuse card catalogs, and I’m delighted that mine has joined the ranks.   Thank you so much AT and Gregory for sharing a piece of my home!

With great excitement, I would like to like to introduce a new weekly series here on Poetic Home entitled “A Few of My Favorite Vintage Things.”  Each week, I will happily feature creatives from around the blogosphere who will graciously share their favorite treasures and the stories behind each.  I can’t wait to share with you the guests (some who may just be your favorite artists and bloggers) that we will have this week, starting tomorrow!

To start the series, I would like to share with you a few of my favorite furniture things.  While I do love whiskers on kittens and brown paper packages tied up with string, I also love card catalogs and vintage desks.  Here is a peek into my home and some of the treasures that call to my vintage-loving heart.

Antique library card catalogs have historically escaped me.  Some escaped me via a faster driver from Craigslist, while others were simply out of my budget.  However, one day, as my husband and I were strolling through an antique mall, we spotted this beauty — just in time for our anniversary!   I had to wait around the corner to wait for another admirer to walk away before we swooped it and lugged it home.  It was so serendipitous, and indeed, this vintage card catalog is one of my very favorite things.   It has transformed many times — from a buffet in my dining room holding silverware — to its current rendition of a “bookshelf,” inspired by what Darwin may have enjoyed in his home library.

In my world, this is the desk that launched a thousand words.   After graduating from college, I started my writing career at this very desk, whose aged lines exuded literary wisdom to me.   I took the name of this piece, “a 1930s ladies writing desk,” quite seriously and literally.  While my dual monitors and bulky PC tower no longer fit on the desk,  I love sitting here on the weekends and typing letters and poems.   Another favorite vintage treasure in this photo is the “Paris” hat box, which my husband — on his very own — found in an antique mall for my birthday a few years ago.  It was the perfect soul mate to my treasured desk.

Originally from an old San Diego theater, this pair of theater seats is one of my favorite pieces.  Not only does the wood patina glow, but it’s amazingly comfortable and ergonomic too!  Flip up the seats and there are “hat racks,” perfect for a time where wardrobes were more stylish and culture was gentler.  My husband and I drink wine and watch movies from the comfort of these chairs.

Tune in tomorrow for another “a few of my favorite things” installment from a very special guest contributor!