I could use some tips on how to store books in a really little house.

I knew a woman who loved her many books but had no furniture for them. She sorted them in a single neat row against the wall on the floor. Her cat didn't mind.

Alyssak, are you looking for accessible shelving for enough books that you're having trouble fitting them into a smaller space?

If so, consider finding or building footprint-efficient shelving. If you mostly have paperbacks, for instance, you don't need deep or foot-high shelf spaces, and if you've got tall shelving units with appropriate (or adjustable) shelf spaces you need fewer of them and have more room for other things (or more bookshelves). You can also go high, by mounting a shelf just above door height wherever works, or stacking a long bookshelf above other things. Or go low, and multipurpose: short shelves can make great end tables, and bench seats can have shelves beneath them.

If you have a lot of books, spreading them out in different rooms and spaces can make them seem less overwhelming in a small home. So can concentrating most of them in one area and calling that your library.

Have fun!

I'll never understand why people cram books into their fireplace.

Pleiovn, I'm with you! It makes both the books and the fireplace a lot less useful, and I think the end effect looks unattractive and neurotic. *wry grin*

...Oh. I just read the original post for the fireplace books. It sounds like she's not using that as book storage at all -- it's a fireplace screen she made from chopping up books she didn't like. I still don't think it looks good, and I wouldn't do that to a book, but at least it doesn't render the fireplace unusable.