Oftentimes, a bookshelf is at the center of home, housing the collective conscious of those living inside of it. However, as much as the bookshelf serves a very simple and direct purpose, it can also be turned into a creative masterpiece that adds to your home’s decor. if you’re an avid reader, you may have dozens or even hundreds of books to store, so here are three ways to style your bookshelves. 

Everything needs a place to go, and we have some tips and tricks to make your personal library look great and fit into the decor of your home.

First Way: Minimize.

Before you style, you have to start fresh. Take everything off the shelves, and maybe give the books and the shelves themselves a dusting and cleaning. Now, it’s Marie Kondo time; get rid of everything that you don’t really enjoy!  Maybe you have some books about a hobby you’re not really into anymore. Or paperbacks you’ll never read again. Either way; if you don’t really dig it, get rid of it. If you don’t feel like throwing them out, remember most thrift stores like Goodwill accept books as donations. In effect, minimizing is styling; only have what you love!

Second Way: Play With Shapes, Forms, and Colors.

Now comes the fun part; arranging and setting everything up. Start of course with your biggest and heaviest books. Stack them both horizontally and vertically to allow for some variation in forms. Here’s where you’ll have to start making design decisions; basically, you’ll have to figure out how you want your shelves to look. Interior designers usually prefer to make shelves look sparse and to mix up objects. Librarians (and the bookish) sometimes prefer to stack ‘em high and thick. We say: if you have a lot of books, get a lot of shelves. Clutter isn’t a good look for anybody. For a personal touch, display some of your favorite books by ‘facing out’ their covers to accentuate them to your guests.

Finally, think about color. As before, making things open and clean goes a long way when trying to arrange a ton of small stuff. Pro tip- remove the dust jackets of hardcover books for a cleaner and less cluttered look. Of course, the rage at the moment is a rainbow-colored bookshelf. We say go for it! Unless you have multiple thousands of books, arranging by color isn’t going to make it tougher to find anything.

Third Way: Balance It Out, Make A Statement

Besides getting yourself the right amount of room for the right amount of stuff…you’ll need some non-book items to place on the shelves to break up the monotony. If you have small items, think about putting them in a few cool-looking boxes. Plants and natural items always look great. Don’t forget things like photos and artwork! If you’ve never been on a hunt for sculptural, beautiful objects, now’s the time to start. As with all of these suggestions, it usually makes sense to balance it all out. 

What do we mean here? Basically, don’t have too much of one thing. Keep some empty space on all the shelves, and make sure that each shelf area has about as much stuff as the other parts of the bookcase. You can ask yourself this question; how do you want your bookshelf to look? There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way; just a set of personal preferences. You can order your books by subject, by size, or you can just put your favorite ones in your favorite spots. Do you like the monochromatic look, or are you more about maximalism? 

 

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