I love this image from Apartment Therapy.
And the discussion below the photo. Such passion about how to arrange books! How do you display your books?? Do you have a system?
Arranging books
Apr132010
home. design. life.
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THIS is a pet peeve of mine. First of all, I dont believe for a minute that this is a personal collection that when color sorted it turned out like this. It’s been styled. That being said, I have done this on a much smaller scale in my daughters room and it works to sooth the chaos of all the crap a 7 year old girl has.
Regarding the silly quote about the bookings sharing a unique dynamic when place next to each other…I am all into frequency and energy but not when it comes to books that happen to share the same made-man cover color!?!?!
And don’t get me started on people covering books (all white usually) or placing them backwards on a shelf. While its certainly not illegal it cries of book abuse and neglect, and right or wrong, I will assume that the homeowners are not book lovers. It’s kind of like dying your pets hair to match your purse. Sorry to rant…I told you it was a pet peeve of mine.
Pictures like this bother me too. Shouldn’t books be lovingly arranged by author or genre? I think books are a lovely way to claim your space, but it seems fake to color code them. If you love books, like I do, puchase them for their content not their covers.
I think it’s a lovely photo, but it wouldn’t work in my house. 😉 My girls books are grouped by series/theme: Little Golden Books, Berenstain Bears, Fancy Nancy, Arthur, older books, etc. I also do them by size. My own books are kept together by author…or at least I try to keep them together. 😉
It’s all very contrived really isnt it? I prefer my books to have a more real look and sort by genre and size. Some upright, some lying down, with a few knick knacks scattered throughout the shelves.
(PS your first link to apartment therapy needs tweaking.)
So, maybe this homeowner isn’t a hard core reader, but it IS an interesting visual arrangement. And that pug? Don’t get me started on that chunk of cuteness!!
Holly, I think I like how YOU styled your bookshelf in your header photo even better. But this is really interesting and I do love the photo.
What you did in your home would fit better in my home too. In this apartment picture I like the colors and the interesting symmetry (sp?). Thanks for sharing. It’s good to see lots of different ideas in styling and design.
While the color is really cool, being a teacher and hopefully a future Library grad student…It drives me nuts because there really isn’t a logical order to the books, because the color of the cover is really not all that significant.
I love the thought of having a library in my own home and do currently collect books. (My husband and I are both readers.) I have an entire bookshelf dedicated to history books only, (with some small pics and stuff between.) I have the books sorted according to Texas History in one shelf, US History and government on one shelf, and World History and government/economics and religion on another shelf. All of the shelves are arranged in chronological order. (My roommate from college and I also assorted our historical movies that way.)
I love it!!! When I look closely at the shelves I don’t think they have covered the books to match but put them in groups to match…to each his own. Visually I adore this…however if it were mine I probably would go by author author..
however…if I was totally honest I would grab the cute little beastie and run for the door
OK..I would also steal the cushions…
To be honest with you, I LOVE this arrangement! I majored in English and now write for a living, so my books and bookshelves are constantly taking over my apartment. I have the arranged by function – travel, history, non-fiction, writing/quotes, cookbooks, etc. – but the fiction books that I always keep on the eye-level shelves are the ones that I think are the prettiest! That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate “uglier” (if you will) books, or love them any less, or am not a true book lover! That’s silly – arranging things a certain way is completely different from altering them permanently. If I had enough colorfully-spined books to arrange like that photograph, I totally would do it!
ONq6TK Good point. I hadn’t thought about it quite that way. 🙂