• Monochromatic: Covering books in Kraft paper is probably oriented more to the design-centric than the true bibliophile as it can make the books difficult (if not impossible) to find at a moment's notice. That being said, it creates a clean monochromatic look in a room. If you like the look but want to be able to find what you need, consider adding bookplate style titles to the spines. The same can be said for turning spines in to create a monochromatic look — impossible to find what you need but a viable solution for books you hang onto strictly for sentiment's sake.
• Organizing By Color: Organizing books by color creates a graphic pop to the room, drawing attention to them as a feature instead of seeking to make them simply blend in. It can also make them easier to find, lending a bit of organization to your shelves.
• Orientation: Instead of going vertical why not stack books horizontally? It creates a graphic feel and makes titles easy to read. You can also alternate stacks between vertical and horizontal to create a more relaxed, eclectic look.
• Incorporating Art: Smaller framed works can be propped up on shelves and large pieces can be leaned or suspended in front of them, creating a layered effect.
• Creating Vignettes: As seen on Apartment Therapy, Lonny Magazine featured a great guide to creating sophisticated vignettes. Design Star winner and Secrets from a Stylist host Emily Henderson also shares a great tipon the HGTV website, emphasizing creating balanced asymmetric compositions on bookshelves.
Add your own favorite tips or sources of inspiration to the comments below.
Images: Remodelista, Laure Joliet, Elle Decor, Domino Magazine, HGTV
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Are the books in that first one turned around? What exactly is the point of that? It makes zero sense.
#4 is my favorite. It looks like the bookshelves of someone who actually reads! #3 is nice too.
Oy, here we go yet again.
Yes, ELFay, I'm afraid that the books in the first photo are indeed turned spine-in. How crazy is that? That -- together with the color-coded arrangement -- is, as so many have noted before, an insult to books and readers.
Not much better is the last photo, which shows books that I'd bet large amounts of money have never and will never be read by their current owner.
#3 and #4 get my vote, esp. #4.
I'd really love some help in a way that lets me still see the covers of my books.
OK, books with the spines turned in is just plain stupid. Sorry, it just bugs me to no end.
As both an avid book reader and painter, I LOVE the organization by color. My shelves are currently disorganized, so when I'm looking for a specific book I'm always searching for it by its jacket color, anyway. The only problem I'd have with it is it's so trendy - it would be flat-out gimmicky if it weren't so simple.
I'm a reader of books more than a 'looker at books'. My bookshelves (plural - as in at least one in every room of my house, including the bath) are for storing my books more than for displaying things.
I will say, though, that I've at least stopped jamming books into them and I do now try to have some 'breathing space' on the shelves. And I've started to purge out unloved titles a couple of times a year. I used to have a house where 'books came in but never left' LOL.
Like so many others, I love my books for their content more than for their form. My book shelves are not really an opportunity for design and decor, they are more for holding books that I've read and continue to reread. So yes, book shelves that hold more kitch than books bug me, as do shelves that are difficult or impossible to navigate (spine turned in?!?!? WHY?) or merely an affectation.
I don't mind the color-coded idea - I could see some very visual folks finding it easier to remember where a book is by color than by author name. I have to shelve some books according to size, and I have no trouble finding them. But then, I know my books really well.
I think book lovers take pleasure in seeing shelves of books regardless of the effort put into styling because we don't just see books - we see stories and ideas conveniently packaged in a form we can use over and over. That has an attraction beyond the merely aesthetic.
I think it's great to add visual interest to break up rows of books, but any styling that makes it harder to find a specific book is a turn-off for me. Books are not accessories.
Threadbndr, go ahead and cram your books in. They need it! It keeps the spines square and prevents dust and bugs from getting into the pages. It's especially important for older books with loosened pages; bugs love to get in there and eat the glue.
I've never had the problem of finding a full, well-organized bookshelf as being something that needs improving. I order my shelves by book type, which for me is the easiest way to sort my books (classics here, comics there, art and design there, sci-fi/fantasy there next to history and other nonfiction), then by author last name within those. That way, if I am looking for a book to loan someone that I forget the title or author for, I still know just where to find it.
I sort of like the kraft paper wrapping, and to me it is a lot less silly than putting the spine in etc. because you can still label them or even identify them by drawing or pasting on your own pictures relating to the contents, or just with patterns to differentiate them. Plus it keeps the books safe from light etc. that will discolor them. As someone who spends a lot of time in the book sections of thrift stores, that is something that is always at the back of my mind.
At the end of the day, though, a shelf full of interesting books has all the appeal in the world, and just doesn't needs any of these gimmicks.
Is kraft paper acid-free? That's important if it's going to be in constant contact with a book you want to preserve.
I like the idea of covering all of my books in paper and labeling the spines. I could add a stripe of color -- or ribbon? -- for each category: blue for folklore, white for mythology, green for garden, red for poetry, purple for fiction, etc. Hmmm...could be really beautiful and easy to use.
Anyone have any source for large sheets of inexpensive acid-free paper?
I don't understand the aversion by "real readers" to styling bookcases. It's not like the books are being disrespected or ruined - they're beautiful and being used as art. Though turning them the other way is silly and seems you are bothered that your books don't coordinate, so I get that.
But I am an avid reader...but also appreciate decor and like an uncluttered, curated look. So I have a regular, crammed bookshelf that lives in a guest room, but bookshelves in other areas get vignettes containing some of the books I love the most plus whatever knick knacks (art, photos, collected objects, etc). I don't see what's wrong with using shelving to decorate nicely incorporating books into that, instead of having to validate yourself as a "real reader" by only having bookshelves stuffed to the gills.
I think a normal bookcase with only books is certainly beautiful and appealing, but I don't think people who opt to style some of their bookcases should be looked at with disdain, and certainly it shouldn't be assumed they don't love their books.
agreed, mcdr.
I have nothing to follow that with. You said it best.
I devote some bookcases just to books and other shelves just to curios. I don't like to mix books and fragile bric a brac. An exception is the office, where reference books and binders are shelved with sturdy office tools and equipment.
Dear Apartment Therapy,
Please do not put up pictures of books with the spine in. This is a design website and the spine in is not design.
Thank You,
Dylan
P.S. Fix how we load pictures, it is oh so annoying.
Okay, organize-by-color-advocates, how on earth do you keep track of series of books? There's just no way to keep track of 35+ Discworld books that way... Or what about this set:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/series/RWC.html
(Yeah, we're a couple of Chicago graduates.)
We do have two bookcases devoted to paperback fiction with some matted, unframed art in front of them, because mass-market paperbacks are ugly. The art is lightweight and easy to move to access the paperbacks.
But most hardcovers are already beautiful. Why mess around with that? Grouping books by genre and author creates some cohesiveness to a bookcase. An author of multiple books often has a certain aesthetic which carries over into the covers. I love the appearance of American Harry Potters, the British Discworlds, our Heron Press Agatha Christies, my legal tomes... each grouping is beautiful in of itself. No need to dress them up.
Hmmm, I'd need to get rid of about 30% of my books to make room for tchotchkes if I actually wanted to try any of these styling techniques.
I love the monochromatic look but there would have to be titles on them. Otherwise, you might as well just buy a ton of books secondhand just for decoration.
I wish I could arrange mine by color because I love that look, but there's not a whole lot of variety to my collection. About 80% of them are black :(
vykim,
It's okay to mix methods! You can organize most of your books by color and have vignettes of book sets. If you look in the photo of the color organization it does have a couple of sets, although they're small and muted.
I have a lot of books - books in almost every room and I love color organization too because I know my books better by their appearance. I keep my books in useful categories (gardening/plants/outdoor, cooking/food, etc.), give each category it's own distinctive space (an entire book case, a single shelf, half a shelf, etc.), and then organize by color. (Book size can also be an issue - sometimes that needs to be part of the equation.) So I don't have every white book in my house together, but I do have all or most of the white literature books together. If I wanted a really big visual impact, I might combine several categories, but I'd try to keep them somewhat similar so that finding a particular one wouldn't be an issue.
With multicolored sets, I mix them in on the bookcase as their own vignette. If you already have a rainbow of colors represented in the area, the sets will probably look great and add a little variety. If the shelves are all monochromatic tan books or something, it might be better to place the set on its own or somewhere else where a rainbow of colors would look good and be appreciated.
I really don't understand the rejection of the color coordination thing. Not everyone thinks the same way and I, like bijaydi, find it easier to search for books by their visual markers rather than alphabetical (although I spend all day working in a bookstore where EVERYTHING is alphabetical).
Also, who says it has to all be the same? I use the color block method for most of my books, but for series (like my Harry Potters and LOTR) I create vignettes, and for ugly mass market paperbacks I usually either store them once they're read or take them to the thrift store.
I used to love hanging onto every book that crossed my path until I realized how much real estate they were taking up and how much dust they were adding to my household. I now only keep a few treasured and well used volumes around. BTW, I used to have old, interesting-looking antique volumes and I did indeed read each and every one.
My current rule with keeping books is I have to have re-read them at least three times or they're out. I organize them by subject (one shelf for history, one for fantasy, etc.) and grouped by author, so no, it doesn't look "pretty" but at least I can always find the one I want!
My only concession to design is lining all the spines up at the same depth, instead of having smaller books pushed in to the back of the shelf with larger books sticking out.
Umm... I wasn't really looking for "permission" to mix methods, but "thanks" for the condescending tone.
Here's what I plan to do when I finally come around to organizing my mess of a book shelf: Take off the dust jackets of hard cover books. This way, you can achieve the color-block and/or monochromatic look AND see the titles. Plus, the various textures of covers themselves (glossy, matte, etc.) lend an extra layer of interest.
I swear AT does these bookshelf posts just to rile everyone up!
The first picture looks like the perfect candidate for an hilarious "Catalog Living" caption
vykim,
The only tone in my comment was enthusiasm for design and books. Please read charitably, I was only trying to be helpful because you asked a question.
Anyone have a source for large sheets of acid-free paper?
Recently the thought popped into my head of covering paperbacks with hardcovers, as it seems libraries used to do. Often when I check out books from my university library, the ones from the 70s have somewhat uniform green hardcovers, with the titles and authors' names stamped on the spine in the same clear font. It seems to me like in the 70s, the library covered all the paperback books it acquired in these covers, to protect them from borrowers. Anyone know if there's an affordable and viable way to do that for one's personal book collection? I have a lot of paperbacks and I think covering that way would help them as well as keeping my bookshelves looking less cluttered. Plus, I'd imagine if you got really into it you could color-code appropriately, using slightly different colors for different book categories.
Nicole, check out http://www.shopbrodart.com/
This company has supplied libraries and bookbinders for over 70 years. It's a book lover's dream.
I love these shelves. Can you tell me where you found them?