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Knowing the size of the space, whether you are building a new addition or transforming a current room, will allow you to budget properly. This home library features pink walls and espresso-finished bookshelves. An elegant living room featuring luxurious seats and rug along with a fireplace. You will find information about selecting the proper home library furniture for your personal retreat with the various setups and types of libraries that you can incorporate into your home.
Light your bookcases with puck lights on the ceiling of the upper shelves, or install downlights along the tops of your bookcases. In addition to creating atmosphere, lighting your bookcases helps you browse the titles. If you hang artwork in your library, consider highlighting special pieces with picture lights. The hardware store can also yield a wall or two of inexpensive bookcases if you opt for metal utility shelves in an informally styled home library.
Create new collection
Because the shelves are typically open on the sides, you will need to use some sort of bookend at the end of each row. My mother installed floor to ceiling bookcases all the way across one wall to create her living room library. A large home library featuring stunning bookshelves and elegant brown leather seats. The coffered ceiling and the reddish hardwood flooring are so perfect together. That typical traditional design we all have in mind with wood panels on the walls and brown all over the room doesn’t really apply to modern interior designs.
Interior designers Tara Mangini and Percy Bright from Jersey Ice Cream Co., created a cozy, charming home library in an 1887 Arts & Crafts home. Built-in bookshelves and tall wraparound wainscotting painted in a warm medium toned gray has a grounded and calming feel that lends itself to concentration and focus. An antique armchair and small round side table, a vintage rug, and a collection of small framed paintings on the wall give it a homey feel. A glass French door allows privacy while letting in natural light. Interior designer Jenn Pablo of Jenn Pablo Studio created a home library corner by installing a freestanding, warm, wood bookshelf housing books and decorative objects that complements the all-white decor.
Home Library Design Ideas (Photos)
A built-in desk and shelving, and a comfortable love seat and coffee table provide multiple ways to use and enjoy the space. Blogger Ursula Carmona of Home Made by Carmona gave her parents' rustic and traditional mountain home library a modern refresh with white paint, floor-to-ceiling shelving, and a built-in window seat. She added a pair of armchairs flanking the wood burning stove that make the space comfortable for two to read, relax, and play music.
If you lack the budget or the real estate to build an aspirational home library with floor-to-ceiling shelves and a sliding ladder, take heart. You can create a home library in any size space, even if it means adding a bookshelf, chaise, and reading light to a corner nook in a studio apartment or family home living room. Home libraries may be quiet spaces for reading, relaxing, and reflecting, but that doesn’t have to mean boring. You can create a reading area in your home office that reflects your personality and draws color from your home decor, from the walls to your book collection.
A Practical Ladder for a Large Library
Light pours in from the adjacent window making it the perfect place for daytime reading. Blogger Emma Chapman of A Beautiful Mess installed a custom built bookshelf wall complete with a library ladder on one side of her living room that houses a nonchalantly stacked collection books and knickknacks. While it might seem antithetical to install a TV in the middle of your home library, this one largely disappears against the black paint of the shelving. Set up a cozy reading nook near your book collection and a window with good light. A comfy chair, lamp, and a side table for a mug officially designate it as a reading spot. A modish home library with stylish bookshelves and an elegant black center table on top of a red rug set on the hardwood flooring.
These end tables should be large enough to hold the current book when you lay it down, a cup of tea or glass of wine, and a table lamp. You can go a bit smaller if you use a wall-mounted or floor lamp. After all, isn't it top-end luxury homes that most often set aside entire rooms for the sole purpose of displaying fine books? But the truth is that a home library doesn't need to be a spacious room—a spare bedroom, a walk-up attic, or even just a quiet corner of an existing bedroom or family room can serve as your library. Nor does your library need to have expensive shelving and furniture. You can create a perfectly functional home library using furniture and accessories you already have, or items purchased at second-hand stores or yard sales.
If glare is an issue at certain times of the day, install a light-filtering treatment under your curtain or drapery panels. A pair of sheer panels works well as an under-treatment, especially if you can open and close them as needed. Adjustable treatments such as semi-sheer fabric shades, wooden blinds, and woven shades are also good options. The right window treatments for your home library depend on your windows and the time of day during which you plan to use the space. For the most flexibility, opt for treatments that work well both day and night. Because they fit the space perfectly, they look like they are built in even though these are free-standing shelves.
Installing wall sconces and picture lights on the shelves provides extra lighting without taking up any extra space. If you don’t have enough room for a bookshelf and a sofa in your living room, try building the bookcase over the couch. Fortunately, bookshelves are pretty easy to squeeze into a lot of spaces. Whether your color choice is warm or cool, as seen in this video, light plays a major role in how color transforms any room. Use a balance of task lighting and ambient lighting with appealing light temperatures so that the office is equally functional and visually comfortable.
Interior designer Kim Nadel of Kim Nadel Interiors created a home library book corner with contemporary built-in black, white, and wood shelving that is backlit for dramatic effect. An oversized pouf provides a place to page through coffee table books. This library in Pacific Palisades, CA, from architect Margaret Griffin of Griffin Enright Architects, is a book lover's fantasy come true. Floor-to-ceiling shelves house an enviable collection of books. A central fireplace appears to float in front of a glass wall with a view of a hillside garden anchored by a stunning 300-year-old Sycamore tree.
Book lovers with extensive collections dream of having a dedicated home library where they can store all of their books. Even those who primarily read on digital devices appreciate a quiet, cozy, and designated place to curl up with a good book. If you've got a spare room to devote to reading, the sky is the limit.
To offset the dark walls and show off the beauty of your room’s architectural bones, paint the ceiling, crown molding, trim and built-in shelves and off-white . At a minimum, you need to place an end table next to each upholstered chair, sofa, or loveseat in your home library. If your seating includes a pair of club or wing chairs, you can place a single, shared occasional table between them.
The reality is, few of us will get to experience that ladder-riding joy. Once we allow our minds to slowly land back, in reality, we can begin designing the home library of our dreams. In the 21st century, not everyone is going to model their home libraries exactly like the public libraries.
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