Call me crazy, but I LOVE the books in the fireplace. I don't use my fireplace for fires and right now I just have some candles in there that almost never get lit. Hmmm. I might just have to try this!

And pants on the ground.

Books on the floor, books on the floor, lookin like a fool with your books on the floor!

^That was the 1st thing I thought! Now the song is stuck in my head.

But the books in the fireplace look great.

I sort of love the look of books anyplace, but none of these pictures are doing it for me. It just looks messy in most of the examples - particularly the pics of books under or on top of desks. The ones with the neat rows of books are my favorite examples shown, though I hate the trend of color-coding books.

And this would NEVER go over in my household - my boyfriend loves his books way too much. He gets mad if they end up out of alphabetical order. If I put them on the floor I'd never hear the end of it.

It looks like a silverfish party zone. In humid Florida with the tendency towards bugs, it seems like a bad idea.

BOOKS ON THE FLOOR!
BOOKS ON THE FLOOR!
LOOKIN LIKE A FOOL WITH YA BOOKS ON THE FLOOR!

Wow. I just now realized how unoriginal my posting is.. Way to go, fellas.. quick on the draw!

Kelee Katillac's book, *House of Beliefs,* helped me be aware of things that are important to me so that my home would reflect me, not what I've seen in a magazine. After reading her book, I started stacking books in places that made me feel good, including on the floor. The office/studio w/the black dog could be my studio! I'm so glad you showed this photo, because I was starting to feel guilty about the stacks at the end of my work table.

The comment about the silverfish is disgusting, but sadly is probably a realistic bet.

I do like the looks of the fireplace books, as long as they don't end up as kindling.

Books piled up on the floor = wrecked books. It compresses the pages and the spine and binding are damaged. NO BOOKS PILED ON THE FLOOR. Great for photos. BAD for books. (Lined up on the floor: ok...but get dusty real quick.)

I don't mind the look if its done right but its obvious that these people don't have small kids. I could stack them but seconds later they would be all over the floor.

if you just like books as design props, then go ahead and stack 'em on the floor.

but if you actually want to read them, it's not such a great idea. stacking like that damages them.

The fireplace with bookshelves in it - Good look
Stacked helter skelter- a thousand times no.

Makes my binding hurt...

Books on the Floor - No
Books arranged by Color - No
Books on the Floor arranged by Color - Oh, that should be alright...

In the fireplace? Maybe just "Fahrenheit 451"...and anything by Stephanie Meyer...

The first photo is charming, but I agree that it'd be a better idea to build a shelf that fit within the space instead of stuffing them in as shown. In fact, I might make something like that to stick in my firebox during the summer months.

The rest of these photos? Nope.

The books in the fp look nice, but were probably styled just for the photo shoot. You wouldn't really store books like this.

And the others... just look like piles of books waiting to be put away. A mess. (I don't care if you are Orla Kiely, it's still a mess.)

All I can think is how much nicer the black-walled dining room would look without all that crap lying on the floor!

I used to keep some of my books between bookends on the floor - untill I had a plumbing problem and a bunch of them ended up with water damage. It also gives bugs, rodents, and dust a great place to hide out . . .

as a clean-type person i agree with the others: books on the floor is a sweeping/dusting/clean-up nightmare. as a librarian, books arranged by color makes me shudder. but also on a very practical note, i like to keep my books at eye level where i browse my own books on rainy and sick days. i would be inclined to ignore books more often if they were on the floor and hard to reach like that.

I don't like books on the floor... but I have about 10 stacks of books on the floor of my office so perhaps I should not judge too harshly. I love my books and have many - I have run out of space for them. All of my books are currently in my office which is a room the size of a closet with limited wall space (due to the placement of the door, a window, and a strange wall-mounted light fixture). I have two large Billy bookcases packed to capacity, and the floor is cluttered with the rest. Well, there are actually quite a few in and on my bedside table as well. My children's room also suffers from a lack of shelving so they have some oversized books on the floor and board books in baskets. I do organize my books (by genre but not alphabetized within their categories) and I'd rather have them all tucked up on proper shelves. I'll have to find ways to incorporate book storage into the other rooms of the apartment. Cookbooks in the kitchen makes sense. But books in the fireplace? My problem with it is that they are so low to the ground that you can't read the titles without crouching there. Plus, the photo above looks like the spines aren't even turned out so I assume that the owners won't be removing or reading those books anytime soon. Books are lovely to have in a home, but it seems odd to use them strictly as decorative objects. Strange to me, at least.

the books on my floor are not a design aesthetic. they are there because i ran out of shelf space and are awaiting new shelves for them to move too. books on the floor are dust magnets.

Hate it. Cluttered, messy, bad for the books. It feels college life-ish to me, when my roommate and I stored library and course books on the floor because we didn't have bookshelves (nor the space for them.)

I laughed out loud at jerrysabatini's comment.

I once lived in a beautiful old apartment...that was ridden with silverfish. The thought of it still makes me shiver. So while I love the look of artfully arranged books on the floor--gross!

Maybe I have a different idea of what charming is.......not one picture was charming!

If I have so much books that I run out of place for them do I have a hoarding problem? Should I hold on the books even if I've already read them? I would rather edit and give away than have books all over the floor...

First, books look like dust collectors instead of good looking on the floor piled up. Second, they may get damaged when you clean the room or simply walking by etc. I value my books more than anything else in the house, I can't put them somewhere they may get damaged. Besides, it's a bit difficult to take a book from the pile when you need it. Nope, not for me.

Count me in. I love books on the floor. I have some stacked a foot or two high in my bedroom, and they look orderly and keep me from having to buy another shelf. As for compression, I don't do this with my more valuable books, but come on, nobody is going to be hurt if the pages get slightly compressed on my already dinged-up paperback "Breakfast of Champions." I buy most of my books used anyway.

I dust all my books once a week when I dust everything else.

Here's another one!

A friend of mine once made an awesome impromptu coffee table out of a stack of Interview magazines, back when Interview was oversized in the 1980s. I think *that* constitutes a clever use of books-on-the-floor. I have also stored books in piles on the floor while writing my dissertation, arranged by subject or chapter or what-have- you, but that was a temporary situation. I agree that books on the floor are like a giant cat hair & dust trap.

I don't mind it.

Everytime that books in the fireplace picture shows up here, I want to never read AT again. I hate the books in the fireplace so much! I think I audibly groaned when I just caught a glipse of it again in my feed reader.
It's not just the books *in* the fireplace, it's the way they are crammed in there. *Maybe* if some shelves were built it...

I never thought it possible to get emotional over the 'welfare' of books but there really ought to be some kind of organisation out there that will kick down the door of anyone who treats books as harshly as those responsible for cramming them into the fireplace, or stacking them as in image no.6, and rescue them. =O
It could be called "Homes for Tomes" or something.... Anyway, Orla's stack looks more than acceptable by comparison!

My motley collection of reading material, I've just realised, occupies the best pieces of furniture I have to my name, the lucky blighters, and are arranged according to subject material rather than colour. Call me eccentric but I buy books for the content.... ;)