The Little Free Library has a home

Alas! The Little Free Library has been painted and she has a home.

There were a few places I knew I wanted the Little Free Library to live and last Saturday I had a meeting to confirm she'd be able to move in to her new digs.

I spoke with Mr. Vinod Hemlani and Mr. Don Hemlani, owners of Harmon Hemlani's Apartment. When I was a reporter, I wrote articles about the apartment or its residents. I never felt good about the negative articles. But I remembered Mr. Vinod Hemlani, the landlord, was always available to answer questions, which I appreciated.

I thought about how if I was still a kid, I'd enjoy a little library in my apartment complex.¹

Thankfully, Mr. Don and Mr. Vinod were fully on board with putting the little library on their premises. Both told me they were happy to help the community in any way they could.

This made me so happy they were open to the idea and agreed to it.

So the Little Free Library will be located at the Harmon Hemlani's Apartments!

If you want to check it out, it'll be in the office. Right now there are mostly children’s books in there, with a couple of young adult books.

Now, though, I’m thinking I could put another free library in a more central location….

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Decorating debacle

I, admittedly, am not very good at decoration, painting or design. As an example, the only decorating I've done in our home is put a sticker that says "Employees must stop crying before returning to work" on our bathroom mirror.² Somehow I forgot about this particular weakness within me until it came time to paint the mini-fridge and I faced a few obstacles.

For one, the spray paint came out chunky on me.

I could have outsourced the decorating to a more experienced person but at that point I had committed to starting this Little Free Library and I was going to see it through, chunky paint or otherwise.

The end result? It's a cute color but it's not the best paint job, I will say that. The good news is that textured paint is trendy right now, right? Someone please says yes, I'm begging you.

Aside from the texture of the library, there was a slight issue was the charter sign. I thought about screwing it in but I didn't want to wreck the fridge in any way so I just....glued it.³

After I painted the little library and then affixed the charter sign to the front, it looked a little... plain.

I attempted to decoupage and instantly regretted it. I wanted to reuse products as much as possible so I scoured the thrift store for some type of library-related decoration that would withstand the elements. No such luck. Then it occurred to me to I could make magnets.

I had some leftover shrink film and magnets from previous projects. I used some free graphics from Canva, made some magnets and stuck those to the fridge. Finally, I taped a QR code that links to a website that explains what the library is on the inside and phoned in HGTV Design Star.

Keeping with the reusable theme, I noticed a small side table by a dumpster and I took it to use as a table for the library.

I put the library at the Harmon Hemlani’s Apartment on Monday.

That's it. I did it. I will put the library on the Little Free Library official map online and check on it in a week.

How will it fare? That's my next update.

Thank you to Mr. Don Hemlani and Mr. Vinod Hemlani!

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In case you missed it, this month on The Husk it’s all about authors and bookstagrammers and making a Little Free Library in line with May being Get Caught Reading Month. Let’s read, let’s encourage our little ones to read and let’s especially read Pasifika authors.

Thank you for reading. Write to you again, soon.

Cheers,

Jasmine

1. When I got my first library card, I was around seven years old and I felt like I'd won the lottery when the librarian told me I could check out up to six books. And when I returned them, I could get six more.

2. To me, it’s cute and funny.

3. I did try to screw it in but I backed away from that when I saw metal shavings. Metal shavings are a clear indication I have breached my level of expertise and need a consultant or a lifeline.