Bookcase of interest

A truly remarkable bookcase, as captured by Elsie esq.. At first it looks a little overloaded with statuary and earthenware, but everything is so carefully selected and pretty much matches the actual content of each shelf. The bookcase itself looks neoclassical in style, as does the chair next to it and the painting on the wall.

Fireplace in a home library

An excellent image of a home library fireplace (Riccardo Cuppini). From the looks of it, the library does not have any books that are intrinsically valuable (which is perfectly ok). Otherwise it would be a risky idea to have a fireplace in a library room. You can see all the black surrounding the hearth! Still, the fireplace is massive with the fire burning deep within the structure. The wide mantel collects a lot of the soot and the heat is projected away from the books. Another amazing thing is that the fireplace looks very much used. There are various utensils that indicate that sometimes it is even used for cooking.

Home library gem: The Complete Clay Sanskrit Library, 56-volume Set

At the age when many people are buying hard cover books by the foot, wouldn't you rather improve the value and the appearance of your home library by getting something extraordinary? Today's home library is a statement about the owner's interests and aspirations, more than ever. So, if your intellectual interest lie in the area of Eastern philosophy and literature (whatever it means to you), the Complete Clay Sanskrit Library Set of 56 volumes cannot be beat!

"The Clay Sanskrit Library makes everything easier for any reader: the Sanskrit text, written in familiar Roman letters, faces a fresh English translation, and the convenient pocket size is both elegant and practical. This exciting collection includes many volumes from the two beloved Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Maha*bharata, in addition to other classics of Sanskrit literature. Each book is published in a jacketed hardcover edition, in a compact 4.5" x 6.5" format, designed to bring the literature of India to the general public, scholars, and students. For many interested readers, access to this vast treasure store has been hindered by an unfamiliar language and a difficult script."

Home library types

 A little bit of theory :)

When people begin to entertain the idea of creating an in-home library it is important to plan ahead depending on the type of a library is actually desired. Library design must suit the function! There are three major types, as far as I can tell.

1. Display library.

If you have an existing collection of rare books and first editions this is probably the type of library you are thinking of. It is a much more difficult task to start a display library if you do not already possess some considerable bibliophile treasures. In many cases, books in a display library are not meant to ever be read or consulted. These books are nothing but investment, and to protect this investment you need to consider adequate security measures, as well as storage facilities with temperature and humidity control. You cannot replace your display library should anything happen to it!

2. Decorative library

If you want to show off books that do not hold any intrinsic value, but are simply beautifully crafted, your task is somewhat less burdensome. No need to worry too much about proper storage and security. Still, try to treat your books as well as you can. But it is important to make the distinction between decorative and display libraries, in my opinion. There are some resources on home library books used in decorating, by the way.

3. Working house library
The most useful kind of home library, in my humble opinion. Usually, people who need to consult books on a regular basis turn their entire living spaces into libraries. As a friend of mine put it, "I live in a giant bookcase."

4. Mixed libraries

You can certainly mix the three main library types. Just be sure to separate the books, using separate bookcases for various types of books. You can also have, for instance, a display library next to the dining room and a working library upstairs etc.

Black bookcases in a home library

See also:

• Home library design pictures: Set #1
• Home library design pictures: Set #2
• House library design: Traditional elements and ideas

Do you want your library room interior to have elegance? Are you striving to achieve dramatic contrast in your space design? Black is the color that modern designers often choose for these specific purposes. The key here is not to overdo (unless your last name is Dracula) and to have plenty of accents and detail-rich features that will ultimately bring your home library to life. The good news is that when you use black as the primary color for your bookcases it will be your books that will easily add color and interest to the room. After all, book spines are an excellent choice for house decor. Modern books can be very bright and colorful. Let's not forget, however, that brown is the color that most commonly seen in traditional libraries of the past. If you have a lot of leather-bound books (antique or modern) you will need to make some decisions about "color management" in your home library. Take a look at the black bookcase below. The books stored in it are primarily brown with some gold on the spines. Now, notice the brown floor vases, bronze horse head book end and the brownish curtain. The rooms comes together, despite the use of the two colors that can sometimes clash: black and brown.




For comparison, I have a black bookcase that by some stroke of genius was filled with black and gray books. All the accents, however, still manage to brighten it up a bit.




Another way to add life to a home library with black furniture is to use something like this Delano bookcase. The side panels are not made out of solid wood pieces which creates an stylish airy look.


Here is another common color solution. This ebony bookcase has a contrasting back panel finish. Since it is unlikely that your books will fill the entire shelf, this color will still be visible, adding warmth and richness to the library room.

Book Tower -- a unique over-sized bookcase for living rooms and home libraries

Over-sized books always present a challenge. At pubic and academic libraries they are stored in special "folio" bookcases, which makes sense -- otherwise you would have to make all book cases large enough to accommodate such volumes, thus significantly limiting the space you have for book storage. In a home library, over-sized books can end up on top of other books, they are often left on desks, coffee-tables -- what have you. Which is a shame, because these are usually superb editions with quality illustrations and great looking spines. This book tower offers a solution to this over-sized books problem.

For centuries codex books (as opposed to scrolls) were typically stored flat, not on the side which is the case today. This was quite practical, because vellum books were heavy and the binding was never strong enough to support them in upright position. Basically, books were treated like wine :) The same principle is used in this book tower. Even very large editions can be placed on the shelves without causing any visual chaos that would have been inevitable when mixing horizontally and vertically arranged volumes. The base of the book tower is very wide and durable -- no reason to fear that the shelves will become unstable. An added benefit is the ability to arrange the books for maximum decorative effect, by choosing the right shelves for books of different sizes. This point is illustrated in the photo above by the arrangement of branches that also helps define your interior space in a similar way. Perfect for a living room, this solution can also find its application in a dedicated home library. So, if you have a wide assortment of over-sized books, try this book tower that combines function and style.

Ladder bookcase & Waterfall bookcase - design, decor and function.

Waterfall bookcase is a great way to break up the monotone look of library walls with a graduated shelves that are reminiscent of cascading waterfalls. On a functional level, waterfall bookcases are a great way to arrange books by size, while making sure that smaller books do not end up lost on uniformly deep shelves. Besides, this helps fight the urge to have more than one row of books on each shelf - a plague of many home libraries!



In modern design, ladder bookcases are most reminiscent of traditional waterfall bookcases so prominent in Regency and Victorian libraries. I would not be surprised if some people used the term waterfall bookcase loosely, thus including ladder bookcases, but the latter (pun intended) also have the effect of preserving the openness of a modern living room, they do not dominate the space and allow the color and detail of their surroundings to remain visually prominent.

New book on using books for home decoration

Books do furnish a room by Leslie Geddes-Brown is the most recent of notable publications that deal with home libraries and decorative use of books. The title seems to imply that the author is defending his position, but there is really nothing to defend here. Books are beautiful, versatile and useful! One particular feature of this book is that it recognizes the value of books in decorating different types of rooms: living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, hallways and even bathrooms.

Bedside "Book" Table

You don't need any plans for this sort of bedside table. Just a stack of over-sized books and... a couple of belts. If you tighten the belts the table will be structurally sound. Perhaps keeping the buckles on the side rather than on the top would work better. There are obviously other ways to keep the books together, but it is more important to consider the various choices you have in customizing this table. You can use books that reflect your taste (as well as distaste for certain books!). You can even go with a particular time period. Of course, I don't advise any misuse of incunabulae, but some nice leather bound antique books could look absolutely stunning in this capacity. Also, depending on the style of your home library this bedside table can find its place there, just blending in...

Bookcase plans

Due to high interest amongst that the visitors of this blog have in woodworking, I decided to put together a list of some freely available bookcase plans that can be found on the Internet. There are many places out there where plans can be purchased and that's fine. But why not explore the free ones? Perhaps with some slight modifications you can build your dream bookcase!

Barrister bookcase plans

How to build a bookcase

How to build a Bookcase: Step-by-Step Woodworking Plans

Bookcase Plans - Make Your Own Bookcase Design

The Tall Bookcase

Build your own bookcases

Short Bookcase


See also:

Ladder bookcase & Waterfall bookcase - design, decor and function.

Home decorating with books: for your library and the living room

This may be a touchy subject, but there are people who are not at all enamored with the process of reading, but still enjoy the looks of books. One of the most curious approaches I have seen is something that a California company (Book Decor) does with old leather-bound books. They sell them by the foot! In many cases these are books in foreign languages, so you can be absolutely sure that under no circumstances a momentary weakness or lapse of judgment will allow you to be caught cuddling up in an armchair with one of these books.

It is also conceivable that someone, still a great lover of books, understands the value of books in home decoration. There are a few books available on this subject (no "Home library for dummies, sorry!):

Marble busts and some principles of home library design

Many depictions of traditional libraries prominently feature marble busts of writers, philosophers and various historic figures. I would like to stress the importance of such elements in home library design. Here is why.

One of the most basic principles of design that I try to follow is the need for balance between various shapes within the same space. To my personal taste, a room that consists largely of the same types of shapes or surfaces (for instance round tables, round stools, round place mats - and all that in an oval room to boot) cannot be seen as a well designed space. Now, libraries by their very nature make the prevalence of squares and rectangles unavoidable. Books are notoriously angular and bookcases are usually nothing but fractal rectangles of sorts (here is an example of rather unusual bookcases, however). This design handicap is well understood by all, so not much is needed to rectify the situation. One can employ crown moldings, wood carvings, furniture with rounded angles etc. Of course, some individual accents are an excellent choice. Marble busts work great for this purpose. Not only they provide visually appealing curves and various shapes. The very color of the stone stands out, because only occasionally book covers and spines are white! That's why I would recommend marble (plaster or alabaster are OK) busts as opposed to bronze. Not to mention the fact that busts and sculptures add a certain human dimension to any space.

The choice of marble busts these days is quite wide. You shouldn't have to hire an artist to make one unless you want to immortalize your own likeness. Here is a quick sampler of personalities that have inspired home library owners for generations, depending on their intellectual sympathies:

Philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Voltaire
Literature: Homer, Shakespeare,
Music: Beethoven, Mozart
History: Pericles, Lincoln, Herodotus

Dan Brown's Home Library

The Today Show's interview with Dan Brown features his home library, complete with what he calls "Fortress of Gratitude" where numerous editions of "Da Vinci Code" etc. One would expect Dan Brown to have a home library, right. He is after all a writer. Sort of. For our purposes, it is quite interesting to see a home library designed for a guy who can really afford it. Nice wooden built-ins on two levels, soft lighting, but adequate for reading in a couple of locations (if I assume correctly). A surprising touch is a huge baroque fireplace. Now, I feel bad for having a fireplace in the room next to a room where any number of books are stored. However, it appears that only candles are ever burned in that fireplace. So, I guess that's ok, to create extra coziness without causing heat damage to books. A nice piece of photography, for what it is. I would definitely maximize the video screen. And I would love to see high-res images of this place!

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Library Wallpaper

I just bought a new laptop. Thinking that it would be nice to have a library image for my desktop wallpaper I searched for what I believe to be one of the most magnificent Baroque libraries in the world: The Strahov Monastery Library. The two images have very high resolution, so you can resize it for any desktop resolution you might have. Use the "save photo" link that pops up on the right when you move the mouse over the picture. You can also search the same site for "Strahov" pictures.

Antique books for your home library

If your home library is purely decorative or you have a peculiar taste for classical literature, here is a simple way to build the collection. This 1909 book contains many lists of books that were considered to be essential for every library at the time. This means that there are numerous copies of these books still in existence and that they are relatively cheap (unless you want to find first editions). Also, because all of these books are now in public domain, they are available in recent editions, usually very nicely bound and a the fraction of a cost of most modern books. By the way, many of these books are indeed worth reading!

Most likely, you would have a difficult time coming up with so many titles on your own. Now you can just make a list and hit the bookstores, Amazon or what have you.

Bookcase headboards - good or bad?

As a former owner of a bookcase headboard I would like to address those folks who are planning to increase the amount of book storage space in their bedrooms. I assume that the pros of having a headboard bookcase are pretty clear - you can reach for a book anytime you are lying down, and when done reading (which at bed time can be within minutes), there is no need to get up and return the book to the shelf. Now, let's look at the cons:

• It is not easy to have adequate storage in a headboard bookcase. Most manufacturers, with good reason, limit the number of bedside shelves to only two or three. If you hope that you will be able to finally have enough room for your ever growing book collection by simply adding one of these bookcases, forget it!
• It is simply not safe to have objects towering above your head when you are sleeping. Even a modest paperback can considerably startle you when you are sleeping, and a heavier volume can cause serious injury. Astonishingly, people even place decorative elements and various other objects on their headboard bookcases!
• If you think that by adding a headboard case you use your bedroom space smartly, you are mistaken. You are in fact creating unusable space below the level of the matrass, because you cannot store books directly behind the bed, as they would be inaccessible there. Also, the edge your bed will end up too far from the wall, possibly blocking passage. This was the main reason that made me say goodbye to my bookcase headboard.
• To be perfectly honest, having books behind your back is a good way to forget that they exist. I remember how the books that I used to store in such a bookcase would just stay there without ever being read!
• Personally, I think that bookcase headboards look dated...
  

Are there any situations when the use of a bookcase headboard is a good idea? Absolutely. If the shelves are deep enough or you have a sliding door to keep them from falling out, AND you have too much empty space in the room, such a design can make your bedroom appear less empty. Also, if you have a large bedroom and the bed is located in the middle, a headboard bookcase with shelves ON THE OTHER SIDE will look just great. Otherwise, just stick with a bedside bookcase or an end table.

Home Library Links

There are many websites that deal with the subject of home library. Unfortunately, in the world of search engines large public and college libraries receive so much credit that most valuable home library sites are barely visible in query results. Hence this list of links and articles!

• Home Library Decor - Book Decor

• Your Shelves
  

• Organizing a home library
  

• Clever ways to create an In-Home Library
  

• Create a home library

I will gladly post links of any and all relevant websites dedicated the home libraries

Faux books in a home library

Faux Book Box CD / DVD Holder Cabinet

Using faux books is a long-standing tradition in home library decoration. Very often faux book panels are used to cover doors, hidden cabinets and objects that chash in their style with the look of the room (e.g. LCD TVs). There are, believe it or not, manufacturers of faux books. They specialize in creating extremely well-designed panels that feature a variety of different looks.

The beauty of this custom approach to faux books is in the fact that you can fill a "bookcase" with very imaginative titles, often books that don't even exist! The library of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth has a door covered with such faux books. The titles include "Kant on hypocrisy", "Venus observed", "Plays never acted", "Wolf's life of a lamb", "Endless road" by Wanda Farr, and "Knick knacks" by Paddy Whack. There is deep irony in turning actual fake books into virtual fake works that never were and probably never will be written. If you have any sort of creative strain in you, make sure to use this opportunity to show off your imagination. Just keep in mind that hiding a safe with priceless jewels behind such obviously fake books will not be a good idea.

Kids' bookcase extravaganza (actual bookcases shown!)

It is always a good idea to keep the kids' books separate from the rest of your book collection. Besides, it is nice to be able to spread the book around the house, so that they are in the area where they are most needed. You will probably want to keep your cookbooks in the kitchen. Our children deserve nice dedicated book storage units in their rooms.

Kids' bookcases come in a variety of styles, nearly all of them quite boring. Manufacturers seem to be unable to show more creativity other than what requires to come up with a pink or blue box of shelves with pictures of Disney princesses or Superman drawn all over. The bookcases I show here are, believe it or not, actual bookcases from the collection designed by craft artist Thomas Leman. They are not kids' bookcases per se, but they look SO much like they have just stepped out of a 3d cartoon! Something tells me that the quality of these bookcases is very good, so they will probably last as long as you want them to.

Check out more of this furniture style at dustfurniture.com

Home library meets restaurant design

As long as you believe that a well designed home library is one of the most beautiful sights in the world, why not consider marrying this look with something entirely different in terms of function and style? Here are some pictures of a restaurant conveniently located above one of the locations of a Russian bookstore chain. The restaurant is called "Biblioteca", which is Italian for "library." The menu, quite appropriately, features Italian dishes. Books and literary references are used as the main design theme, and the color scheme reflects the colors traditionally associated with bookcases and leather-bound books.
























See also:

Restaurant Design Ideas
Italian Restaurant Names