I think that books look much better on bookshelves than vases, figurines or any other decorative accessories. Sometimes a few frames can look good but for the most part I would say that best thing to put on a bookcase.

Our decorator designed the bookshelves for our library and came down to "accessorize" them after they were built. He was shocked that we actually wanted to FILL them with books. I compromised on a few shelves of frames and busts of composers than my son had been given over the years by his piano teacher and a couple with lamps and such. But now that we're double shelving books I may even take over those shelves!

This picture is about 1/3 of a wall of shelving and I will probably not only take out the decorative accessories, that old children's encyclopedia set needs to go, too. Our kids aren't old enough to be establishing their own homes yet so we're still hanging on to a lot of extraneous stuff.

Mostly books, arranged by subject rather than size or color. Some stuff -- photos, tchochkes, music related stuff. Quite messy, but actively used all the time. I think the best decorative things are terrific book ends.

kswl - With your home, nothing looks bad. lol Beautiful corner!

I prefer a cleaner look, and instead of calling them BOOK shelves, we just call them shelves. :)

I have posted these many times before.

Here's a shot of my old Ikea "Billy" bookcases -- and my reading chair:

They are all gorgeous. Thank you all!

I don't have pictures, but I agree that bookshelves look wonderful when they contain books. The secret to arranging books is to keep them straight - vertical side-by-side and/or stacked neatly. This tidies up the variety of color and shape of the books.

I also agree with amysrq that good bookends are the best accessories! Almost anything weighty that is attractive will do.

Love your shelves KSWL! I agree with your thoughts of books looking great. I much prefer that to *knick-knacks*. Good for you in speaking up to your designer - your room looks much more *natural* vs. a *decorated* look.

tina

In our study/library there are four bookcases. I'd love to straighten them up a bit more for some nicer pics, but DH would have a fit. He uses it more than I do and things end up strewn all over the place (hence the picture cropping ;^P ). These bookcases are antiques from Amsterdam that we bought many years ago in Santa Fe. They actually do look very nice . . . at least once a year, anyway!!
BTW, both bookcases shown here are the same size, I just took one at an odd angle. The other two are not fit for photos today!
Lynn

Not mine (I am forever working on mine ... still unpacking!), but I love it.

I have lots of bookcases. Some are prettier than others, but none stay neat and tidy for long. Please excuse the general mess. I didn't stage before taking the picture, so you get the real me, ha! Slight hijack -- someone here posted pictures of their CD/DVD organizers that looked like pretty photo albums. Does anyone know where I can find something like that? I would like to eliminate the messy appearance of our music and movie storage.

Family Room (this area serves as our library, office and computer game center):

Kitchen cookbooks:

More family room books and CDs:

Living room books/movies:

I have no pictures because I have no bookcases...yet. However, I read once that your should repeat colors and shapes throughout the bookcases. For example, if you display a round plate on the middle shelf on the left side, also have some round shape on the top shelf on the right side. If you have red books on the bottom shelf, have something red on an upper shelf. Does this make sense?

Now, for full disclosure: In house #1, I had bookcases which were on either side of a fireplace, my books were on the left and DH's were on the right. Mine tended to be novels and art books; his were studious tomes from his graduate program. Which meant mine were brightly colored, multiple sizes, and if you ever read the spines, rather frivolous. His were multi-book sets bound in dark somber colors, and if you read the spines, quite serious. DH was adamant that his books not consort with mine!

Sarschlos, we bought our binders from Sleeve City. I don't actually like that method of storage, but DH does....his brain works differently from mine. We have at last a half a dozen binders and spread sheets as indexes. I am a visual type and would far prefer to shuffle through a drawer or something. Vive la difference!

lynninnewmexico - I noticed that you had some Texaco memorabilia. Care to share why you collect?

This is just one area...I have all of my women authors here. The steps were a great find at a local antique mall.

{{!gwi}}

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This is in my office. I just threw some stuff in them after we moved in. They have my Italian cookbooks and pics from our travels. They need to be fine tuned but we moved in a year ago and...

Newhomebuilder: regarding all the Texaco memorabilia, my FIL worked for Texaco his whole career. He was based in Oklahoma and found good potential drill sites for them (with much success). DH has these, along with a great original Texaco sign, to remember his father by. He was a wonderful man and I adored him, so they're special to me, too.
Lynn

NHB, I have our CDs and DVDs in red "leather" albums. I think I got them either at The Container Store, or Stacks & Stacks (both online). I love them.

lynninnewmexico - That's interesting, because my grandfather, father and brother were/are with Texaco (called the Texas Company when my grandfather was with them in Chicago and NYC.) My dad and brother in SC.

Pictures is a Texaco collection in my son's bedroom (since it's on shelves, I don't feel like I am hijacking this thread.) My brother has a whole room devoted to T items, including an antique pump and the signs, etc.. of course my father has some old signs from his warehouse. Years ago, someone broke in and stole all kinds of memorabilia. Very sad!

New room (we didn't unbox everything in this move)

Previous room
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Love seeing all these shelves, especially the built-ins.

I'm with kswl, I like books and lots of books in my bookshelves. The knick knacks just become dust-catchers, at least in my house! Anyway, here is literally the first thing you see when you come in the front door:

Oops--the top 2 shelves on the right side are my library books, and since I'm a reading addict those shelves tend to be constantly full to bursting :).

After seeing IKEA Billy bookcases turned into built-ins, we are working on doing that in my daughter's bedroom. My handyman (aka my son) got a bit distracted with fall semester at school and hasn't gotten around to starting to trim them out. I'll take pictures when that is finished too. I think it will look great.

Ann

kswl, I really like your built-ins. Did you make those yourself? I promised to turn a spare room into a library/reading room this winter, but IÂm not sure where to start. I donÂt really want a bunch of free-standing bookcases, IÂd like a cleaner look. And doors on the bottom would be handy for other things. We have a bookcase in every room, if I had a library maybe I could have more space open in those rooms.

Runninginplace mentions "After seeing IKEA Billy bookcases turned into built-ins". How can I find this? This sounds promising. Maybe less work than building from scratch? I have not been following this forum, in summer I am on the gardening side!

There may be others but a while ago I posted in a few different threads about the IKEA Billy bookcases we fiddled with and made look built-in.

lousy close-up but it's all I have to show the soffit / crown and the decorative pieces we ran (vertically) to cover where the bookcases met each other (and the wall on the left)

Our ceilings were (former house) 8', so by attaching crown & homemade soffit to join the top of the bookcases to the ceiling and decorative moulding to hide the joints of the individual bookcases (plus some luan skin on the sides) we were able to make them look built-in. We used the chase between the ceiling and the top of the bookcases to run wiring for (also IKEA) puck lights.

Recently someone wrote that they were disappointed with the sturdiness of the Billy bookcases. I can only speak to my experience which was that they were AWESOME! Granted, we attached ours to the wall, but I never, ever had any doubt about their construction or abilities. And they saved us so much money!!!

Here are my bookcases (and my cat!)......

maggie2 - There is one thing missing in your room. You don't have a cat on the other chair. lol I don't think that I have ever seen a room look so "mirror image" before. Very pretty!

Rmkitchen, I should have said you are the inspiration for getting IKEA Billy bookcases for my daughter's bedroom. I love what you did with yours to make them into "virtual" built-ins! Once my son finishes this term he has promised to work on trimming his sister's shelves out so they hopefully will look similar to the ones you did. Great job and as I said, very inspiring.

Ann

amysrq- WHERE DID YOU GET THAT COUCH! We are wanting one just like it for our home! LOVE IT!

Everyone- I want to have a built in look without the built in price....where to buy? Any ideas???