The autumn nights are drawing in and the clocks are going back soon. As the evenings become darker and shorter we all become less inclined to go out. Now is a wonderful time to settle down in your favourite chair with a warm drink and a good book.
Lots of us like to hang on to the books that we buy. They make an excellent way to decorate your living room or home office.
But how do you store all those colourful hardbacks and paperbacks. Here are few ideas on things that you can do to store your books and enhance your living space at the same time:
- If you have a fire place with alcoves either side, why not fill in the space with bespoke floor to ceiling shelves painted to match your décor?
- Use modular shelving to create interesting patterns with your books.
- You could buy a traditional bookcase to match your furnishings.
- Use single shelves with imaginative bookends to keep your volumes in order.
- If you have a lot of books with plain colour spines, colour code your books in order on the shelf so that they match the spectrum to give you a rainbow of colour – red, orange, green, blue, indigo and violet.
- Use random unused spaces to insert book shelves - maybe under the stairs or even incorporate shelves into your stairs.
- Get a free-standing three-dimensional shelving unit that rotates or which you can walk around.
- Add some interest to your living space by using shelves constructed at interesting angles.
- Upcycle other items such as old wooden step ladders. Open them out and span shelving between the steps to create a quirky book or storage shelf.
- Cantilever shelves make an eye-catching addition to a contemporary styled room.
- More industrial in your tastes? How about re-using old warehouse racking?
- Take some natural material like a small tree trunk as a centrepiece and radiate shelves in rough sawn wood from it.
Can’t find what you like here and stuck for ideas? Take a look at Pinterest and search bookshelves for more ideas.
