apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

ugh...

I agree. Ugh. Fake books? If the shelves aren't necessary, find some other way to fill the space.

this is weird. i mean, the product is okay for using for storage, but the idea of fake books gives me the willies!

If they weren't in such odd colors, I might enjoy them.

we sell these where I work and no one buys them. ours are made to look like vintage books.

Didn't it explicitly say these weren't real books in the article?

I wouldn't do this myself, but the idea of using a fake book to store magazines makes me laugh for some reason.

My grandpa had metal file boxes (for tax folders) like that. I think they were from the army in WWI. They were olive green. I still have one where I keep his papers.

ugh. just do something else to decorate.

Gosh. I could see one or two for storing a few documents. But why create a space that you don't need in order of fill it with more stuff you don't need.

haha i kinda agree... why not put all your REAL books up on the bookshelves? and who ever said all your books need to be in matching colors? i dunno that just seems a little anal...

fake books on shelves you can't use. sounds rather stupid and would not suit my life. since when is buying books such an expensive thing?

"why not put all your REAL books up on the bookshelves?"

I think these are used by people who don't read much.

fake books? No, not really.

If I could find some that look very real I might get one or two to hide jewelry and keys from burglars in my book shelf.

lame.

I kind of like them I could hide my trashy novel collection. But covering books is too much like jr. high--and I actually want to read mine, so I would want to see the titles.

There's a little too much obsession with books as objects on this site. I don't want to arrange them with the spines not facing out, I don't want to arrange them by color, and I don't want to weed them out and give them away.

"Fork over the dough for real books"? Couldn't one find some of them genuine books at thrift shops for a buck or two a piece? I rather doubt that the Pottery Barn boxes cost less.

Books for decorative purposes only is offensive enough, must you add an utterly illogical defense for the practice?

There's that boiling oil, again.

Ludicrous!

Ugh! What is with AT turning books into a purely design element? Your bookshelf is sucha bold statement about who you are and what you like to read/would like to read.

Fake books? That says you don't want to read a damn thing, but you hope people think you do. And covering a real book so that it looks like one of these fake books?

Some people really love books for the sake of their being books. So, no, I don't want to color coordinate my bookshelf, or wrap my books in paper to hide what they are, or clutter my house with empty boxes that look like books! I just like to buy beautiful bookshelves, and store my library on them.

Please change the tune, AT.

I actually would LOVE these if they looked like real books. Vintage looking, you say sevenmotions? Where do you work because I seriously would buy a box full!

Don't get me wrong, I love real books and my book shelf (which is very large for a bookshelf) is overflowing with books...after I weeded out the ones I don't read, even!

But I also have a passion for "secrets." Boxes with locks, books that you can hide things in, secret compartments in desks.... If I could have a secret room hidden by a bookshelf that moved out of the way when I twisted the head of this sculpture here, I'd be ecstatic! I love that kind of stuff.

However, I agree with others that those fake books are papered with an ugly print and it's ridiculous to fill up dead space with fake books (real ones from thrift stores would be much cheaper, even if you bought paper to cover them all to match). There are so many more interesting things they could do with that space.

I wouldn't want a whole book shelf full of fake books, either, especially if I couldn't get at them. I just want about half to a whole dozen spread here and there throughout my house. (Great to hide things in when company comes over...stacks of papers disappear in seconds!)

In last month's Domino, they showed a shelf where all the books had been covered in white and tan paper, hiding the binding, which is almost as lame as this is.

It all seems pretty anti-book.

I agree with Mrs.Mack! They would be great to hide some of our piles and piles of papers/old bills/statements that never have a good place in our shoebox apartment.... imagine the piles of cords I could get out of those tupperware containers!

I like the idea very much. It gives you storage space. You can appear as pretentious as folks who have real books they never really read. You can even cover them up with more attractive paper or just brown paper so that they appear pornographic by putting labels on them that suggest lewd and erotic stories. That should piss off every one.

This post is....not ok. First of all, instead of spending money on tacky faux books, you could actually buy a multitude of used books that interest you. You could also buy a ladder and utilize the higher shelves. The idea of just buying those to fill space and *look* like you have books is stupid. If you don't like or want books, use it for something else.

This is just stupid. Waste money on fake books? And this is encouraged???

"without having to fork over the dough for real books."

But these cost more than real books.... Especially if you buy used!

I think they are cute, and like a poster above, like the hidden/secret element, but buying a ton of these just to fill shelf space doesn't make any sense...

this idea has a lot of fun applications though-- glue a bunch together and hollow them out and use it for cord storage on the floor or...

*Laughing* Ohhh, my GAWD..it burns!

well i pretty much agree with the majority here.. although i LOVE the idea of a place to hide the knickknacks when not needed. and to keep the place tidy.

fake books, on purpose, on shelves that you cant even reach? I'm sorry AT, thats a little too far fetched. even for this site. imo.


how about showing some other types of genious storage, that DOESNT involve pretending you read/ buying from pottery barn.

Your post is ironic, right?

I agree with many of the commenters that covering your books to achieve a uniform look is probably not the best idea. On the other hand, if you take advantage of the creative opportunities that a covered book presents -- both while reading it and once it's on your shelf -- I think that the kraft paper bookcovers become considerably more exciting.

It was with this in mind that I started producing updated versions of the classic kraft paper bookcovers. The hope is that people use our bookcovers as springboards for their own creativity and turn their bookcovers into something other than advertisements for a publisher and their literary taste.

Check us out at www.bookcityjackets.com and bookcityjackets.wordpress.com.

I hate clutter but am an avid reader with a tremendous volume of real books that I own that can be a bit hard to store in my small apartment. That said, I would NEVER buy faux books solely for decoration.

On the other hand, though, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not totally proud of all the books I read, and if I had a date come over for a movie and a glass of pinot, there's nothing to gain romantically by him seeing the embarrassing plethora of self-help books that I've managed to collect. No doubt that faux books would come in handy for storing beauties like, "How to Get Married in a Year or Less" and "How to Get and Keep a Good Man: From Successfully Single to Happily Married", titles that would surely send any man sprinting, his figure getting smaller and smaller in the distance through the silhouette-shaped hole he left in the door.