I keep mine in an open upper shelf, much like yours, but wish I had space for a lower-level bookshelf somewhere. We cook a lot and keep copious notes, printouts etc in ours, so stuff invariably falls out when we pull a book down.

Speaking of Jello cookbooks, this is a must-read (see link below):

Here is a link that might be useful: Decline and Fall of Western Civilization as Seen Through the Medium of Jello

Hi Lisa!

Here's the thread that I think you're referring to. In addition to the "hidden" shelf that we use (pictured in the thread below), we also have an old open hutch that holds most of my cookbooks. It has even more books today than it did when this photo was taken.

Pls don't give away your "Joys of Jello"! I have quite a few cb that I also don't crack open but they are so much fun to look at :-)

Eliz

Here is a link that might be useful: Where do you keep your cookbooks

No room in my kitchen so mine are stored in some built in bookshelves in the family room. However I only store part of my collection there. I have a lot of sort of junky books, a lot of pillsbury monthly cookbooks that I used to subscribe to, etc, that I don't really want on display. Those are on a shelf in an extra bedroom.

I also have a drawer in the kitchen which is dedicated to recipes. Magazine cut outs and computer print outs, mainly. Stuff I've made mostly but some stuff I hope to make. It's messy though and straightening it out and culling out the junk is on my list of things to do.

I have a cupboard that I intend for vases and pitchers that's next to my oven. It opens to the side (into a doorway) and is 10" deep so I've been thinking it looks like a good place to put a few basic reference cookbooks to have them in the kitchen. The rest, and the bigger ones, go in the living room on the corner shelf next to the computer armoire (my favorite recipes live in the computer anyway).

I have some cookbooks on a shelf in my glass front pantry cabinet, but most of my recipes are on the laptop that lives in the kitchen. I like being able to search for a recipe by typing in the name or an ingredient. I print out the recipes I use most often and put them in a 3-ring binder inside plastic sleeves and divided by appetizers, entrees, side dishes, etc. I often grab the binder when I'm on my way to the grocery. I store the binder in a slot above my ovens which is near the stove and I use a magnet to hold the recipe in place while I cook.

Right now mine are in a bookcase in the TV room at the end of my kitchen. When I remodel my kitchen, I'll be building a buffet/hutch piece for the dining area in the kitchen that will have shelves in the upper middle for my cookbooks.

Like you Lisa, I forgot to plan for my cookbooks! I was so good at documenting everything I wanted in the kitchen & planning my storage accordingly, but somehow I missed my cookbooks! So, now, they reside on a shelf in my pantry...not ideal, but it works, at least for now. I'm still trying to come up w/a better location that's in the kitchen instead of another room. I don't have that big a collection, but I have enough for me.

Wow, I asked and you all delivered! Thank you! And thanks for digging up that thread, eliz. I'm glad to know it did exist and I wasn't crazy (or at least not in this instance).

So many great solutions. I'm going to have a hard time deciding which works best for me but it seems I can't go wrong judging by what the rest of you have done.

eliz, that cookbook pull-out is very cool!

erikanh, what a great idea! I'm pretty sure I have old binders and sheet protectors. This makes more sense than keeping them in an expanding folder all jumbled together.

buehl, I'm astonished! You've always impressed me with your planning and forethought that I didn't think you'd leave any detail left out.

Okay, I'm convinced. The Joys of Jello will stay. What a hoot, circuspeanut, thanks for posting that link! I also have a BHG lean cooking cook book from the late '70s/early '80s that calls for beef or chicken bouillon cubes and onion powder for, I swear, every recipe. Guess we loved our instant, dried life back then.

I was having trouble finding a place for mine. Since I have the room I'm extending my island and placing 2 bookshelves where I would have had a finished panel at the eating end (and overhang) side of the island. It's not ideal but I think it works and doesn't cost that much more than the finished panels.

Circuspeanut, that's a hoot!!!!

Confession time: I love Green Mold (our family's name for coleslaw mold). I guess it's one of those things you have to eat in childhood to like, like PBJ (never had it as a kid and think it's foul!). I served Green Mold to some good friends at lunch and they took little slices and nibbled most politely. From now on it stays in the family!!

Lisa, I'm glad you're keeping Joys of Jell-o, but the real trick to Jell-o? Put out red. Mix some black cherry and strawberry, for instance, put it in a simple mold, and put it on the buffet. If you ask people they'll turn up their noses at Jell-o, but if you serve it, they'll eat the whole thing. Hm... or maybe don't. They should be eating more green beans...

Ah the cookbooks! We tried many spots while doing the design work for our upcoming remodel. Open Shelf in prep area, end of the main sink lineup, above the raised dishwasher were all pretty open and my DH wasn't thrilled with those places because our collection is well-used! :) We finally agreed on a top rollout shelf in the prep area. While they are out of sight, they are still near the frig, pantry and prep area, and within easy reach of the cooktop if I end up changing recipes halfway thru prep or cooking!

I am trying to convert all of my favorites to my laptop as well but...

We fit a small bookcase in our island. I'm only able to fit about a dozen cookbooks in it, but have found it to be extremely handy.

We keep cookbooks in a 12" deep cabinet(with doors) under one of our peninsulas facing into the kitchen. This cabinet butts up to a 24" deep cabinet facing into the dining room. The cabinet is 4 feet wide and I use 2/3 of it for cookbooks, recipe boxes, and clippings.

You know . . . I was just thinking that I could store mine in the cabinets behind my raised breakfast bar. The cabinets are 12" deep, perfect for books and behind closed doors. I can pick a book(s) and sit at the breakfast bar right there and read up. I guess the canning jars may have to share space with the cookbooks. I don't think they'll mind : 0 )

Most of my cookbooks are in boxes in the basement, though the ones I use now and then are in a drawer in my hutch. I keep most of my recipes on my computer now, and I scan in pages from my cookbooks for my favorite recipes so they are easily available. I usually have only a few recipes from any one cookbook, to little to make keeping the entire book in the kitchen.

Mine are in my pantry cabinet. Some are lined up on top, many are lined up inside hogging space. I really don't even use most of them very much! And I'd LOVE to free up some space. I am thinking of doing something VERY radical to them. I am going to go through each one of them and cut out any recipes that I might use. then I can stick the recipe in a page protector in a binder and discard the rest of the book. I have a few that were my mothers and will never be cut up, and I have a couple of favorites that I use all the time, but the rest never even get opened. I am wasting valuable kitchen real estate on dozens and dozens of unused books. Would cutting my cook books up be a horrible thing to do? I just think I'd get more use out of them this way.

ccoombs instead of cutting them up, why not copy the pages you use? You can still put the copy in the page protector and binder. This way you can even sell your books on Amazon.com if you really are done with them.

Mine are on a book shelf in our breakfast room. It is a built in most of the wall height and around 8 or 9 feet long divided in thirds. The cookbooks take about 3 of the shelves (so that's about 8 or 9 feet of cookbooks. It is nice having them next to the kitchen table because I can pull out several and sit there to comapare recipes and make my choices. I can also open up my laptop and look on line.

Judydel, I thought about selling them on Ebay (selling on Amazon is fairly expensive) but used cookbooks really don't sell for that much. Of course I'll check the value of each before I take the scissors to it, just to be safe.

Well then if you copy instead of cut you can donate the cookbooks to the library, church, or fund raiser, no?

If you don't have access to a copy machine or scanner, I would go ahead and cut them up. Having them in a binder will make them much more useful rather than sitting on a shelf collecting dust.

I love both erikanh's and Eliz's solutions.

Our kitchen is small (not eat in), and we didn't want to store the cookbooks too close to the cooker (grease, etc.). Since we have a decent collection of cookbooks, this posed a problem. We happen to have a little room adjacent to the kitchen and next to the fridge/washer & dryer setup, which we will use as an office(for now).

This is a small, awkward room is about 6'x12' with a low, slanted ceiling that was an addition a previous owner had done. We took this room on when we remodeled the kitchen. There was no where to expand it, so to make the most of every inch, we had some bookcases built to recess into the walls on either side of a small table that was centered under a skylight(in fact, we recessed storage wherever we could. The narrow shelves for DVDs and CDs, and the deeper shelves for books). This narrow room will store the cookbooks on one set of bookcases, and files on the other. Later, if the office moves, this room can easily change personality to be an "eat-in pantry".

We keep ours on the shelves over a small bar on a far wall in ours. When we finally get around to remodeling, I'd actually like to keep them in a hutch in this same space.

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circuspeanut, I haven't seen that link in aeons! That guy used to post a lot on another board I've been a member of for ages.

So many great solutions and all with definite advantages. I love learning how all of you store yours based on how and where you use them. I still haven't decided which way to go....

I have a few local community and a ''best of BHG'' currently on bookshelves - will go into an upper cabinet when kitchen is done. Recipe box full of tried and true - from clippings, family, and friends.

Jello - we used to have Home Interior parties and almost always the jello ''pokecake!'' I got a great recipe from Healthy Exchanges for fresh strawberry pie which uses jello and vanilla pudding.