I'm not an interior designer. I don't have an eye for pulling together the perfect curtain and rug combination, or mixing prints on sofa pillows. But I appreciate good design, and I could (and often do) lose myself poring over design magazines and Instagram accounts of beautifully put-together lofts and apartments and homes.
Not only is it challenging to execute great interior design without an innate sense of style, it can also be expensive. It's easy to feel like you'd have to invest in lots of new furniture or art or textiles in order to change up how your home looks. As a recent first-time homeowner, this is particularly relevant. We have a new, empty house to design and I've struggled with how to achieve maximum impact with minimal investment (both time and money).
Happily, I've picked up one excellent interior design trick that I'll be using for the rest of my life. It's the most commented-on aspect of our apartment in New York, and I've used the same method in our new home to similar effect (although as you can see, the bookshelves at our house are very much a work in progress and still quite bare!). Both of our spaces are similar in style: white, clean lines, modern. But it'll work in any space and with any sort of style or personality that your house or apartment has.
Best of all, it's incredibly easy and uses what you already have: books! All I do is rearrange all of my books by color. That's it. Your bookshelves will have the most impact if you keep them pretty streamlined, so I suggest doing away with as many little tchotchkes and decorative objects as possible. As you can see, I have a few (candles mostly), so it won't necessarily detract from the overall look, but it's smart to try and group those things together with other like items.
You might be thinking that you don't have enough books of each color. Here's a tip: Try removing the jackets from your books (I always save mine so I can switch the color theme later). Often the actual book cover is a different color from the book jacket.
Your color organization can be loose; try and keep similar hues together but don't stress about making it perfect. When you step back, the look is striking even if it's more of a shaded ombré effect. Another smart technique is to switch up the direction of your books. Keep some stacked on their sides, and others vertically arranged. This helps to break up the shelves visually and makes the arrangement by color even more prominent.
And there you have it! The perfect project to revamp your home for the new year.
Do you have a favorite way of organizing your bookshelves? Share your tips with us here.
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Written by: Posie (Harwood) Brien
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26 Comments
Best arrangement I have ever had, much less dusting and dust formation from paper degradation.
I now use electronic readers unless the books are what are known as coffee table books, and I have a few of those, ironically on interior decoration.
I thought I could never live without all my books, I can easily. More empty space on shelves and more truly meaningful objects seem to be my interest now, and as I have admitted, many bottles of alcohol and some really lovely Scottish crystal tumblers from which only guests drink.
So bottom line, a nay for the color coding of books on shelves for me.
(My reading books are distributed randomly throughout the house in absolutely no order because that is how my husband prefers it and I just didn't want to argue that one.)
Rather than the colors, I was more intrigued by the objects used as bookends. M's thought of displaying the front cover or using objects related in some way to the book is thought-provoking.
What strikes me from these photos, however, is the potential to be different. This isn't a stuffed-shelves, overflowing library design, where all you can do is have fun with the colour of the spines. The space still left, and the smattering of non-book objects like candles and pans, leave a lot of fun options.
Show the front of the floral editions of Little Women or Heidi and add a potted flower. We always see coloured spines, but not beautiful covers. Instead of putting different salad books on many different shelves, group them with a stack of bowls. Put baking books near loaf pans, the cup and saucer with drink or baking books. You could even play on themes -- Rich People Problems with something frugal.
I very much want my books by genre, because when I'm reaching for a book I think first of what I want to read. However, if I'm looking for an old book I've read before, I probably could find it by color.
What I can't stand is - I've seen it on a few design websites- displaying your books spine-side in, so the pages face out. Yeah, it makes it all one beige-y textured look, but it also makes you look like the kind of person who has books as props, and doesn't read.
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