As you can tell from looking at the two bookcases in our living room, my husband and I have plenty of books. I have a love affair with beautiful books – the old leather bound classics or beautifully detailed bindings. Over the past few years I have been collecting Penguin Classics cloth-bound series designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith. Being the type-A person that I am, I would love for our bookcases to be filled with exclusively beautiful books.
To digress for a moment, there are two books from the first series that I am missing, and have been unable to find:
- Madame Bovary
- Crime and Punishment
If you know where I can get these (in “Like New” condition), please let me know.
On that same topic, one of my favorite blogs – Effortless Style – had a great post yesterday about beautiful books.
Now back to the topic of this whole post….While I love books, I hate clutter. Despite my many efforts, I still feel that our two living room bookcases look cluttered. Here they are:
We have gone through our collection of books several times and they are as pared down as we can get them. I have tried re-organizing the shelves countless times and the end result always still feels cluttered.
In my plan to de-clutter the living room and lighten things up, I think the look and feel of the bookcases will play a big role in this.
What have you done to make a bookcase feel less cluttered?
What suggestions do you have for our living room bookcases?
Do you have a similar dilemma in your home?
Related articles
- Books, bookcases and deadlines. (amyrosemary.wordpress.com)
- Organize Your Books Like File Folders: TAB Bookcase by EJ Pak (design-milk.com)
Quintessential Quarters 
Try more symmetry, rather than baskets/file folders/albums. Good luck! http://www.bhg.com/decorating/storage/shelves/get-picture-perfect-bookshelves/#page=5
Thank you Cassie! I think that is a great idea. I was actually brainstorming some ideas today and that was one.
Thank you so very much for reading my blog!!!
Keeping the “heavy” AKA large books, baskets, etc. all on the bottom two shelves, straight across with no other ornamentation helps center the look, then the top shelves can be used to “decorate” with the books. I also hide extra books in baskets on the lower shelves to create more room on top. As far as the books, group similar colored books together for a more pleasing aesthetic. Good luck!
JJ!
Thank you for your amazing ideas! I completely agree and will definitely try some of them out (a shopping trip for large baskets is in my near future).
Thanks again and thank you for reading my blog!
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