Books On A Shelf

Minimalists

Who doesn't love to keep things simple once and a while? These bookshelves are the perfect go-to for all those people out there who love the clean low-key architecture style. You can achieve this look in different ways:

- Keep the shelves minimal, for example a wire or one long white board that blends in with the surroundings

- Paint all the covers off your books white so they don't stand out

- Make one straight line by having a curved shelf-board to achieve a clean eye-catcher

The Artistics

The Artistic book shelves are for all those creative-minded people out there who love to try something out-of-the-box. Look at your books with new eyes, see them as a prop as you would with a painting. There is a difference between the ideas where you still want to read your books or the ideas where you'll re-use boring or antique books just for decorating. Here are some easy tips to recreate some of these examples:

- Go to a store and buy L-shaped hinges, nail them in the wall and place your not-to-be-used-anymore book on it (preferably with a pretty cover), open the cover and attach the book to the hinges with nails. Close the cover and voila you got yourself an original shelf.

- Find yourself nine crates, wine-crates will do, and take out the back except for one. Take some nails and attach the middle crate to the wall. Now you got to do the same for the other eight crates, always place the nail close to a corner at either the inside or the bottom of the crate (well you know how gravity works). Play around with composition and voila, you got yourself a pretty artwork! Now start decorating.

- Glue some boring books together, make sure they all stick. Now, there are different solutions to stick it to the wall. Glueing is easy but make sure the glue is VERY strong. You could also apply nails underneath it again to keep it up but it might ruin the view. Whatever you decide, be sure it stays on the wall.

- This one is an easy one: color-order your books to get a totally different view on your boring old bookshelf.

Stairs and Books

The Stairs and Books Shelves are obviously not a DIY inspiration. But they're sure pretty to look at! I know I'm going to design something similar to this in my house later. A staircase is usually such a dead space, only used for going up or down but this just adds a whole new dimension to it. Either if it's to save storage space or to add an interesting element to a staircase. I sure love this category. Now lets start to expand my book collection so I can fill it up (bookworm right here).

Tree Huggers

The Tree-Huggers category is for all those nature lovers out there who'd love to bring a piece of the outdoors into their home space. You can go as wide or as narrow with this as you like. It all depends if you're looking for practicality or just for a decorative element to spice up your interior space. The great thing in this category is that you can also use it to display totally diferent things, doesn't has to be all about books. It's also great for a children's bedroom, just don't leave your baby on there!

Fill Out The Walls With Books

This last category is another dream interior for a future house of mine. If you're a book-nerd like me this is like landing into heaven right. Just imagine sitting there at that window sill and to be able to forget about the world, just zone out and be fully drawn into a great story. Again you can go very dramatic with this or keep it a bit more clean with other decorative elements in between, whatever you feel like. One thing is sure, I won't hear you if you're calling me if I'm sitting in a room like this.


Well this was a bit of a different post, I thought it would be nice to sort things out in categories and give away some tips. Let me hear your thoughts (and what your favorite category is) in the comments below! For those with good eyes, can you tell I had fun with the typography? And because the photo's are so many to link -> Check my Pinterest Board for all proper links - Here. I take no credit to none of these photographs whatsoever, I do take credit to the collages.