It sounds wonderful to me, particularly if the window seat overlooks a garden, English-style. The room won't be too dark if you can add skylights, and paint it a pastel color. It sounds much like the favorite pale green room in the Virginia country house of a dear friend of mine: wall to wall cabinets, above those, plain book shelves,all the way to the ceiling, at one end a fireplace, and at the opposite end the window seat, overlooking the river.

skylights-the perfect solution.
Will there be any walls to paint?

Yes, built-in bookcases are the way to go if you have that option.

In the past year, I have bought 3 half-bookcases at thrift stores and I was able to get two 6 foot tall bookcases free from work when we moved to our new offices.

Uh-oh. Books are starting to pile up on the floor again!

Hey rosefolly: earlier in the year you told me about that garden statuary place in Gilroy. Me & my dad finally made it there last month. We spent 700 bucks. Thank you, I guess. Just kidding...they had real neat stuff there. We could've dropped more easy.

DH just came home and I read the description to him-his comment..."Sounds like just what you want!" how well he knows me!

We have just had our offer on a different house accepted, contingent upon our selling our present house. My books were one of my main concerns.

The potential new house has a good-sized den with one bookcase but not much additional usable wall space for shelves, which means I have consulted my handyman-husband about floor-to-ceiling shelves in one of the bedrooms. He has built shelves for me here and now says that he will build free-standing bookcases in the future so that we can take them with us in any future move.

Interestingly, the first person who looked at this house is a minister who needs bookshelves.

Congratulations, Carolyn. Enjoy your bedroom library in your new house.

Woodnymph and Ccrmrbks, I've actually been thinking of timberframe (post and beam) construction with lots of high windows and dormers for more windows, but not skylights. I once lived in a house I actively disliked, and it had a skylight, so perhaps that is why I am not crazy about them. I'm imaginging this house as a blend of craftsman, adirondack, and Elrond's study at Rivendell, though of course on a much smaller scale!

My husband is listening. He is contributing ideas and expressing preferences, and agreeing with much of what I want. It is possible that this may actually happen in a very few years.

My three children are all either within a year or two of completing their educations, or in the early stages of launching their careers. It won't be long until we are free to make this move. Three cheers! Not that I don't like our present house. But it will be too big once the kids are gone. I want that smaller house with the great big library. Fortunately, my husband also loves to read, nearly as much as I do.

Paula

My dream library is the one that Henry Higgins has. Nuff said (tho I'd add a skylight or two, some plants, some bay windows, and wood floors)

I share bookspace with DH's Lego and GI Joe collection, so it does get tight. He has used the two closets we don't use to set up diaramas (that actually look pretty cool), but he's always trying to steal more space. The next solution is probably a new house with an extra room for him, but thats not happening any time soon. In the meantime, he built floor to ceiling shelves in the office, and has built removable shelves in our bedroom. Plus we have a lawyer's bookcase for my special books. We've used the two side sections of our entertainment center for large photo and art books, and mounted small shelfs (like knick knack shelves) in the hall for some old children's books. And because I won't let him display some of his war toys, he has cabinets in our patio where he stores them, and can show them off as needed.

I try to keep the number of books down to the ones I really need to have or care about. Every year or so, I start purging. I go through my TBR shelf and toss anything thats been there unread for two years. Then I go to the shelves and seriously think about the titles I have and which ones I can't live without. I give some of the pile to friends, and take the rest to the used bookstore for trade credit. It was hard at first, but now I am used to doing it, its not so bad. Whats funny is that I rarely if ever remember which books I've tossed, so I know they are ones I didn't need to have anyway.

A teenaged visitor to our house noted recently, with bemusement..."You have bookshelves in every room of your house except the bathrooms and the dining room." I opened a cupboard in the dining room to show him those, but explained that the moist environment of the baths wasn't good for storage, and so we carry in and out! There is a large bookcase at the top of the stairs, right outside the hall bathroom, for easy grabbing if a long stay is anticipated. But it would be lovely to have them all gathered together in one place, furnished with big squishy chairs, good light, sidetables for tea and thinly sliced brown bread and butter, music but no computer and no TV. A big table in the middle of the room under a chandelier for large books, letter writing, book club meetings...
where's the graph paper?

I'm imaginging this house as a blend of craftsman, adirondack, and Elrond's study at Rivendell ...

Ah, Rosefolly, heaven! My dream house would be a full-tilt Craftsman with bookcases flanking the fireplace, stained glass here and there, and a separate library or a greatroom with floor to ceiling shelves as you described. And I've wanted a window seat since I was old enough to know what one was *sigh*.

Someday! In the meantime, I'm out of bookshelf space myself, mainly because the TBR pile has outgrown the three-shelf bookcase I purchased for it two years ago. I have gotten better at purging the books I know I won't re-read or no longer wish to keep, but I know there will never truly be enough space to house and organize my books the way I'd like to. My DH, thank goodness, doesn't mind the piles of books all over the house -- I am very lucky!

My husband accused me of "junking up the house with books" the other day. That was after we came out of Barnes & Noble as I struggled to carry yet another full shopping bag. Ooooh, if you could have only seen the the look I gave him and heard the subsequent verbal response, which was quite restrained under the circumstances in my opinion, even though it's a miracle his eyelashes and eyebrows weren't singed to a crisp.

I'm completely out of bookshelf space and have resorted to stacking them behind doors, between chairs, and in corners. I'm envious, rosefolly.

cmc-

I'll probably get fried for this, but keep in mind, my suggestions are to enable MORE books to be housed within-and nothing in permanent...this is bibliophile stealth, not cutesy decorating...
Use them as bases for sidetables-top an equal double-book width stack with a piece of marble and voila! elegant occasional furniture! 4 stacks and a bigger slab=a coffee table!

This is an outstanding idea, cc. I particularly like the final touch of the marble top on top of the books for the sidetables and coffee table. I also love this phrase: bibliophile stealth. This describes me to a "t." It's almost a sickness, really, this overwhelming urge I have to horde books and buy even more when my TBR stack could be measured in miles and not mere yards.

After schlepping cartons and cartons of books all over the world for nearly thirty years, I wanted a house into which I could disgorge my nearly 8,000 books (some I hadn't seen in decades). We looked at house after house and couldn't find one that didn't cost beaucoup gazillions; so we settled for a more modest U-shaped one with potential, namely an atrium/courtyard that could be roofed. It's been done for nearly two years now; and it turned out quite well, featuring clerestory windows around all four sides of the new pagoda-like central roof, and the open-end of the U was turned into a large window that looks out onto the lanai. Two and a half walls are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves (coming to just below the clerestory windows) and I have four long, low bookselves whose tops are padded for seating (one is under the window so I guess it could be called a window seat). I do have a desk with my computer in one corner, which is something of an eyesore, but I wasn't really trying to create a "House Beautiful" room.

Over all, I'm very pleased, but wouldn't you know it: it ain't big enough! Books escape and migrate to every other room in the house, though my husband has his own books in his office, my sons have their books in their rooms, and my mother has her favorites (the ones she didn't unload on me when she broke up her collection) in her suite. I even have shelves of books -- those that I don't mind losing -- in the cabana (fancy name for a glorified shed that we use as an outdoor bar, mainly). The funny thing, though, is most of my guests are either too polite or too peculiar to give those books more than a cursory glance.

Right now, I'm coveting the guest house -- I would love to turn it into a library/retreat. As far as I'm concerned, it is a whole lot of potential book space that's being wasted right now. I'm sure you all understand my covetousness, though most of my friends and acquaintances think it's another example of my eccentricity. :-)

I feel that I am definitely in the minority here because the only books I really hang on to are reference ones, travel books and cookbooks.
The rest I give away after a couple of years.
I consider the library to be an extension of my house.

Having said all that, your rooms and ideas sound lovely. I am a particular fan of the window seat. I think I was first introduced to the idea in Jane Eyre - it was the place that she'd draw the curtains and hide and read during her stay with her aunt.

All these ideas sound so wonderful but I have to agree with janalyn that the library is really an extension of my house. I now only buy books usually after I have read them and know I can't live without them. I am down to two of those fold up bookcases which are located within arm's reach of my bed which I find extremely handy.

I once knew a librarian who said she owned only one shelf of books. She preferred to borrow the rest from libraries.

However, it would not work for me. I know that libraries often discard books very quickly once they become less popular to make room for new titles. But I may still want to read them a few years later. I simply don't trust them to preserve the right books, and so must do it myself. In addition, on some topics, I have collected in greater depth than the large regional public library. Roses, for example, and costume history, and definitely on sewing.

Rosefolly

The best -fictional- solution to book storage I have seen is in THE LIVES OF CHRISTOPHER CHANT, by Diana Wynn Jones. In which Christopher is living in a wizardly headquarters with a large library. Each shelf has a button or panel to one side. When you press it, the books on the shelf cycle from right to left into hyperspace/limbo/someplace magical, so that you can cram an infinitity of books onto one shelf. Of course cataloging does become very important!

Light, especially direct sunshine, is not very good for bindings and paper. An ideal book room might have all the books in bays at the back, and a reading area near the window.

Brenda

I thought of you guys today when I read about this book in the local paper:

{{gwi:2117381}}

In the description of the book on Amazon, it says: The ways in which books can become a vibrant design theme are multiple--stacked on ottomans, piled on floors, lined up on benches, and draped over ladders.

Piled on floors? Yipee! I can't wait to show this to my husband and explain to him that all those piles are tres chic, not junky.

Mine just look messy, not chic at all. They also have the habit of collecting dust bunnies and hiding under beds, and couches. Library books are the worst offenders.

Paula,
What a wonderful opportunity! While I love dark woods and lots of them, may I suggest painting the bookshelves white or a lighter pastel color? It would lighten up the room for you. Also, think of other nooks for books. A shelf in the kitchen for the cookbooks, shelves above windows are perfect for volumes you must keep but rarely use, a big magazine rack for the bathroom, a double mantle above the fireplace - the bottom one for stuff, the top one for coffee table books. Books are not clutter. They are usable wall coverings.

I do not get rid of books except for mass-market paperbacks. I just can't. Luckily, we have a boat. Yes, really, it helps. Boating is hubby's main hobby and you know the saying, "A boat is a hole in the water where stupid people pour money". Wellllll, I can buy as many books as I want to and if he comments, I can always mention the new seat covers, the new trottle knobs, the new this, the new that, the dockage fees... hee hee.

PAM

My DH told me I had to many books-they had to go and I ended up donating my library to the library. I still feel pangs but guess what???/ The house is starting to fill up with books again! Also my 11 year old son is a full time book addict. Readers of the world get high on this addiction. Don't we???

I am envious of planning space around books. We, too, have bookshelves full in every room of the house, (INcluding Kitchen and Dining room, EXcluding the baths), but there never seems to be enough space. Books and magazines stacks threaten to topple off most horizontal surfaces. Between "fun" mags and professional journals, and even the kids' magazines, we get about 25 subscriptions each month...

While we don't usually have books in the bathrooms, we do have a print of the following art piece hanging in ours...very appropriate to this conversation....Jim Leedy's "Heaven".

(I've tried 3-4 times to get the link to work, so if it doesn't, go to www.leedyart.com, click on "online galleries", and then go to Bathroom collection and "Heaven"...)

take care
litlbit

Here is a link that might be useful: Heaven

hehehe!
I have one that I framed from the front of a mystery bookstore catalogue-picture this:

Meryl sits, wrapped in her bathrobe, on a closed toilet seat, reading intently. Outside the window looking in, a man holding an infant and beside him, a young child, all with slightly desperate facial expressions.
caption:
Much to her family's chagrin, Meryl becomes engrossed in another mystery.
It is signed Adams and dated 1991.

I ran across this house on the 'net a couple years back and periodically visit the website to drool over the library. Scroll down about halfway for a photo of the library room.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sunset Cove

I simply don't trust them to preserve the right books, and so must do it myself

Rosefolly, I just love this statement.

I used to have the magazines all over the place but finally curbed that addition. Doubt that will ever happen with books though. Nice thread.

There is a reason that I am not an accountant, an engineer, or an air traffic controller. I just noticed that I said I wanted three thousand running feet of bookshelf space. My, wouldn't that be nice. I'd never have to weed books then! I actually meant three hundred, still generous, but not quite so extravagant.

Paula

I don't trust libraries either! We have a small one here and they no longer have the Barbara Rosenblat audio Crocodile on the Sandbank anymore...and I miss it desperately. Someone did not return it...wish that had been me.

I love a room filled with books but I have yet to make paperbacks look even a tiny bit attractive.
I still prefer them to hardbacks for ease of reading on the safa or in bed and their stuffability in my purse but hardbacks look so beautiful casually stacked around a room!

well, if the room is 15 by 17, that gives you a perimeter of 255 ft. subtract 6 ft. for two doors, and 5 ft each for a fireplace and a window, that takes you down to 239. (more about the wall space ABOVE these things later...)
my built-in bookshelves have 6 shelves -so multiply 239 by 6 and that gives you 1434 ft of shelf space, with a few inches off here and there for the vertical supports. My ceiling is only 8 ft., so that would give you room for the clerestory windows we discussed earlier...Now then...over the doors you can probably fit in two shelves each, as you specified a high ceiling-so that's 12 ft. back in-we're up to 1446...and over the window maybe two again-depending on it's height-and one under the windowseat-so that's 15 ft-new total 1461 feet. I have not put any shelves over the fireplace-that would be my personal preference-but it's your room!
However-I'd love 1461 ft of shelf space!
Now-math has never been my strong suit either-so if I went very very wrong somewhere-tell me quick, before I start putting in the foundation!

cece - your maths starts with a rather unfortunate error, I'm afraid.

If the room is 15 x 17, that is an area of 255 sq ft. It's a perimeter of (15 x 2) + (17 x 2) = 64 feet.

Bear in mind also that you're going into the corners - you have to lose about a foot of space in each corner even if you go right into the corner in such a way that you can't get to some of the books. Realistically, you'll have to subtract 2 feet from each wall - so in fact you'll only have 56 feet of space. Take off 6ft for two doors, and 5ft each for a window and a fireplace, and we're down to 34 feet of space.

The total is going to be much closer to 300 feet than 1500.

Sorry.

arrrgh! exposed for the world to see-math ignorance.

that's why I hired a carpenter and pointed at the wall-he measured.

darn. I still like my way better. guess the room will just have to be bigger.

Here's another little sum. Let's assume our 15x17 room has 250 feet of shelf. If we assume fifteen books a foot, then we get three thousand seven hundred and fifty books in our room. That's not bad, actually - I'm pretty sure that's big enough to hold my complete collection.

If if had been 1400 feet of shelf, we'd have got twenty-one thousand books into the room. It was never going to happen.

You actually could get twenty-one thousand books into the room, but there would literally be room for nothing else.

But would the floor cave in? I well remember my first move after I started accumulating books. I didn't have a whole lot and so put them all into one carton so they would be together. The guys couldn't lift it.

I was young.

Ramblers are good, because your bookcases can be supported by the cement slab. Large rooms are good because you can arrange the bookcases in bays. I had an acquaintance once who carried this very far. She and her husband had a two-bedroom house. They moved themselves out of the big master bedroom and into the guest room. Then they converted the master bedroom into the library. They had the bays arranged VERY close together, so close that you could only slide between the shelves sideways. If you needed to look at a book on a lower shelf you had to drop to one knee. Even so the shelves were crammed full and there were books homeless in stacks in the living room.

Brenda

LOL Brenda,

Now that is going to extremes!

Rosefolly, I love the description of your "library to be"; it sounds wonderful. Although my library is much smaller than yours will be, I think you'd like mine anyway. It's a pleasant room with built in bookshelves on one wall and a fireplace on the opposite one. The back side of the room looks out onto our back yard through multi-paned, sliding glass doors. There are beams across the ceiling and folding doors that open on the opposite wall (to the sliding glass doors) into the family room. I love the look and feel of the room. To add to the comfort, I have a glider rocking chair with matching footstool and a good reading lamp beside it. I can sit in the chair to read and look out at my back yard whenever I lift my eyes from the pages. In the winter, when we light a fire in the fireplace, my cats like to curl up in front of it and keep me company.

My idea of the perfect library is the one at the Engineer's Club here in Baltimore - formerly a private house. The linked pic isn't very good, but it gives you some idea. Not nearly enough shelf space, though. Alas, I've never had the wherewithal to have one like it myself.

Here is a link that might be useful: Library at the Engineering Society

rouan, your library sounds wonderful.

I recall reading a news article some years back about a local man who had collected so many books and magazines and old newspapers that the floor of the upper story apartment where he was living actually collapsed from the weight....

I used to babysit for a family that lived in an old "manor house" from the 1920s-very grand-all leaded glass windows-the little diamond ones with stained glass inserts here and there-dining room to seat 40, pool room with huge pool table and two walls of glass, butler's pantry larger than my mum's kitchen, main staircase just made for a bride to descend-second staircase up from the kitchen-and a library. Dark wood built-in shelves to the 12 ft. ceilings, pretty full of old and new books, slate floor covered with old orientals, a fireplace with huge slate surround to the ceiling, complete with some sort of escutcheon thingy above the mantle, large door at either end with two steps up, and one old squishy couch rejected from its former life in the sitting room. The family didn't like the room much-they were readers, but would pull a book and go elsewhere-they thought it was cold, and as the windows on either side of the fireplace faced north through trees, it was dark even in the daytime-but I couldn't wait to get the kids to sleep. I usually had homework to do, but I always curled up in there. I just wish it had been a gas-line fireplace, so I could have had the full experience!

Some wonderful libraries here. Rouan, I hope to see yours someday. Ccrdmrbks, that sounds like an amazing room.

Rosefolly

>They moved themselves out of the big master bedroom and into the guest room. Then they converted the master bedroom into the library.

I like this idea very much. Reminds me that professer and her husband converted their living room into the library office. Lots more space, vaulted ceilings, and since books were the central part of their life (both were writers and teachers) it made sense. They still had comfy couches and chairs so guests could sit. But usually they used their kitchen for that. Just a matter of thinking outside the box. (wish my box was bigger tho :)

makes much more sense than the decorating show my DD and I watched recently, where they turned the living room into a closet-dressing room extravagana!

Well rosefolly, your house sounds great except that with only 1 bedroom you have no room for the grandchildren to visit. Reading to and with grandchildren is the best!

I have also always dreamed of a house with a real library althought we actually don't have that many books. I just don't let myself buy that many, and I do prefer to read paperbacks, but even many of those tend to come from the library. When the kids lived here we had lot of books packed in boxes in the basement, but they got ruined. So we only have about 10 bookcases scattered throughout the house and many of the books are paperbacks. I pass many books on to my son and daughter-in-law or trade to the bookstores.

The only thing that's out of control is my cookbook collection. When we remodeled the kitchen I got rid of about 100 and kept about that many. But I have accumulated another 50 more. A cookbook is a book that must be owned, not borrowed! In my ideal house the one end of the kitchen would have a wall of books surrounding the open woodburning oven! 2 couches on either side of a refectory table and 2 comfy armchairs that could be used on either end, but live under the window looking out on the garden.

>A cookbook is a book that must be owned, not borrowed!At least the classic ones-my Joy of Cooking is full of my notes and adaptations. I do like to wander through some of the more exotic ones at the library though-photocopying is a wonderful thing. I've been making my own "greatest hits" cookbook for years-most of the recipes are "borrowed" so it will never see a printing press-but it is a great reference for me, and I plan to do one up for DD as she launches out into real life.

Maybe some people here saw this episode on an HGTV show about public places being renovated into living spaces (not the "Public Places/Private Spaces" on one of the other cable channels).

Someone bought a small, old library and fixed it up here and there to make it fully liveable. Most, if not all, of the original shelving was kept. Wowie!