Home Improvements

Bookshelf Decorating Ideas

By: Joseph Akintaju on April 21, 2013 @ 9:15 pm

A bookshelf is a dashing addition to any room; maybe you saw some a house in a magazine that had some lovely looking shelves in the living room, and you’re inspired to recreate it in your own home. However, while a bookcase packed to the brim with books may be a sign of an active mind, it certainly doesn’t add anything to the décor of a room. Here are a few tips on how to minimise the clutter in your bookshelves and bring back reading in style.

Get organised

First thing’s first: if your bookshelf is cluttered, organise it so that finding books is much easier. Try arranging them in alphabetical order by author, or by subject. If you’re feeling really ambitious, try arranging them under the Dewey Decimal system, just like a library.

Bookends

Bookends not only keep your books in place, but can also be used to group certain books together, and to denote where one section starts and the other ends. This is useful if you’ve taken the above advice and organised your books in alphabetical order or by subject. You don’t even need to use traditional bookends to separate each section: a vase, a strong ceramic figurine, or some other object will do the job just as nicely.

Donate

If you find your bookshelf is really overflowing with books you know you don’t read, consider donating some to your local charity store or second-hand bookshop. Take an hour or two to go through your book collection and see which ones you don’t need. If you’re an avid reader, or tend to acquire more books than you can keep up with, this is probably a good exercise for you to do every few months or so. Just because you had a good holiday in Brightwater doesn’t mean you have to keep all the books you bought at the book fair there. Culling your books and donating them to a worthy place will help those in need and help unclutter your shelf space.

Customise

If your bookshelf is looking a little plain, or you’ve made the switch to e-books and your shelves aren’t quite as full as they used to be, liven up your bookshelf area with a little pop of colour. You could go the whole hog and make a project out of painting your entire bookshelf – try painting the outer edges a darker colour and the insides of the shelves themselves a lighter colour to give the shelves more depth. Or you could opt for a less time-consuming make-over by simply sticking some washi tape along the bottom of the shelves to add a non-commital splash of colour. Washi tape is decorative, and comes off easily, so if you change your mind, the tape can easily be removed.

With these tips, you’ll have plenty of room for your books, magazines, ads for homes for sale, Mountain Creek travel guides – whatever you like!

Alex Dyer runs his own furniture business in Brightwater and is a book aficionado. He made his own bookshelf, and you can bet no one’s going to accuse it of being too cluttered. You can see his furniture on display in most homes for sale, Mountain Creek.

Further Reading

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