Books and bookcases

 I have always loved books, since my earliest childhood memories. My mom remembers when I was three years old, that I used to get up in the night and "read" by the passage light, eventually falling asleep on a pile of books. The problem book lovers face is that they also tend to love owning books, whether bought new with that distinctive smell, picked up second hand or passed on between friends and relatives.

My first bookcase was given me for my sixth birthday by my grandfather, a beautiful piece in solid wood that I have kept to this day, always in pride of place as the large spacing of the shelves makes it ideal to show off my best art, architecture and archaeology books. It is also the home of my compact complete Oxford Dictionary, bought from wedding gifts of cash: a strange choice of memento for a wedding, but I had married a partner with a shared love of books, which we successfully passed on to our two children.

My first bookcase: in pride of place in my living room

I remember making a bookcase from chipboard when I was a teenager: by that stage, getting books every Christmas and birthday was starting to create a space problem. This simply escalated in my adult years, especially when people started passing on architectural books from deceased relatives.

For many years, as a family, we just battled on with the space problem, making or buying the occasional fitting when things were getting out of hand. One such treasure was recycled from housing a set of encyclopaedias which we had passed on to a charity shop as they were so out of date, but not yet a collector's item. This is now my special place for my collection of children's books, including many that had been gifted me as a child or won as school prizes.

A recycled bookcase for encyclopaedias

When I moved into my current flat, which my daughter and I had lovingly (and sometimes quite frustratingly) restored to bring out its Art Deco charm, it was time to do a major bookcase re-think. I simply had way too many books for a one bedroom flat, now that I was living on my own. As so many of them had been inherited (including an extensive library of classic novels from my grandfather), giving them away was simply not an option.

One or two bookcases in an entertainment room, such as a living room, can be a fantastic asset to the decor, adding warmth and personality to the space, but a floor-to-ceiling library effect can be intimidating to your guests. For this reason, I opted for desktop height fittings, which I had made up so that they would maximise the space available. This frees up the wall space above for artworks and photos, creating a visually lively effect with the white walls as background and a grey picture rail to complete the composition.

One of the three matching bookcases in my living room

As you can see from the photo, I take quite an eclectic approach to my arrangement of books, mixing novels with non-fiction, art books with books of sheet music. I try to avoid too "curated" a look, again because this can be quite intimidating - I like people to feel comfortable to browse my books and not feel that they are just on show. The downside of this is that I have often a real treasure hunt to find anything!

For the bedroom, I felt much more confident to have tall fittings, as it adds to the cozy feel of the room. Here I bought ready-made shelves of solid pine, which I stained to match in with the rest of the furniture in the flat. 

One of two matching tall bookcases in the bedroom

I have kept to a very simple palette of colours and materials, given that I have a couple of very beautiful pieces of furniture in natural wood. For all the new pieces that I introduced, I kept to a very dark mahogany stain on solid wood, to complement the Art Deco aesthetic with its timber floors and solid wood panelled doors. The high ceilings also allow for much darker colour without looking oppressive, but for smaller rooms I would probably have gone for a lighter shade, especially as most of the walls in my flat are now lined with books.