Built in book cases versus book cases from Crate and barrel or ?

10 years ago

I saw another post here asking about builtins for a dining room and realized I was missing a chance to get input from you guys regarding our living room. We need shelves/cabinets for home theatre equipment on one side of a window and shelves/cabinets for books (lots of them) on other side of the window. Window doesn't have enough room beneath to have a window seat. It is quite large and goes almost to the floor.
Our ceilings are standard 8 ft. See wall with "bks" on east wall of living room:

Our options are

built ins bookshelves that will probably be some kind of a hack of Ikea book cases (probably white?) where they will be modified to be deep enough to handle the audio visual equipment. Something like this below:
off the shelf book cases, we saw some at Crate and barrel that we like that wouldn't provide the same amount of room as builtins but also like that they might not dominate the room so much? There is a matching set - one 82 inches height, 54 inches wide and there is a matching media storage for other side of our window - 30 inches or so in height and deeper for media equipment - see below:
no book cases, but a buffet type piece of furniture on each side of the window with floating shelves above where needed.
other?

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Comments (2)

anele_gw
10 years ago
Can we see a pic of the room?

I love your username. My girls are huge fans of Wicked, and Elphaba is, of course, their favorite. My 8 y.o.'s main birthday present this year was to see it again.
elphaba_gw
Original Author
10 years ago
Glad to hear your girls like fairy tale characters. The book was rather difficult with a jillion characters to keep track of but maybe someday they will tackle that also.

As far as a pic of the room, it doesn't exist except in my mind. Right now it is filled to the ceiling almost with stuff moved out of our kitchen which has been demolished and any furniture now in the room such as a loveseat and coffee table,etc. will be given/donated away.

I'm even not absolutely sure of the arrangement in my diagram but so far I'm tending in that direction. May have to close the wall a bit between living room and dining room because I think a little less openness there might add some coziness and also give me room to put a corner cabinet in the dining room that will kind of be hidden but still useful for storage which is what this house has least of.

Obviously, I don't have this all together but I do best one step at a time so if I could make up my mind about the bookcases, I think it would help me move on to the next step of deciding the rest of the furniture/room. Even the fireplace is unfinished and covered with cement backer board ready for marble (which we haven't picked out yet) but I think the bookcases because they will be first thing one sees when they enter the room should be decided first. Thoughts?

The house though small is quite nice even if I do say so myself - especially once we get the kitchen remodel finished. (Though we also have a big job ahead of us doing the hardwood floors plus other tasks by contractors - this is not diy). The house is 75 years old but as I continue on this journey of remodeling, it seems my tastes have definitely moved from vintage/eclectic to modern/eclectic. Hence the reason for my indecision. I think the builtin bookcases will definitely bring me back from my modern direction.
And I've heard it mentioned here that some think builtin bookcases give a room character. We are very fortunate that our house has so much character that it is not a major concern to add more. Though guess it never hurts. (sorry I'm rambling, it is late , will stop here...)
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Built in book cases versus book cases from Crate and barrel or ?

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anele_gw

elphaba_gw
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Built in book cases versus book cases from Crate and barrel or ?

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anele_gw

elphaba_gwOriginal Author

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elphaba_gw
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