You may have noticed on Instagram that we recently put up new bookshelves in our living room! Our friends gave us these West Elm brackets and we had two slats of wood that Eric had previously sanded and stained, so we put it all together and voilà! Hello new bookshelves and goodbye, black, bulky IKEA bookshelf! While I am definitely not a designer or home decor expert, I wanted to share a few simple tips for organizing your bookshelves, plus share a few photos of our current and older versions of my bookshelves. I’d love to know if you have any special bookshelf organizing tips or tricks – share in the comments!
ORGANIZE BOOKS STRATEGICALLY / CREATIVELY: my personal favorite way to organize books is by color, as evidenced by pretty much all of the photos in this post. Grouping books together by color is a great way to divide shelves and add a fun pop to the shelves. I tend to putting the books with the prettiest or most unique binding on the living room and keep the books that aren’t-so-pretty, but are still important to me, in my bedroom.
THINK ABOUT LAYOUT: Alternate organizing books horizontally and vertically to add some visual interest to the shelves. Right now, with the hanging shelves in our apartment, I have all books standing vertically, but with our last round of bookshelves (the black bookcase below), we alternated the way we positioned the books.
ACCESSORIZE! ADD THINGS OTHER THAN BOOKS TO YOUR SHELVES: trinkets, tchotchkes, whatever you want to call them – add them! I have some gifted bookends that are currently on our main hanging bookshelves – the wooden globes on the top shelf and the gold doves acting as bookends on the bottom shelf. Both of these were gifts from my mom.
ADD GREENERY: adding greenery to your bookshelves (and arguably, anywhere in your home) is a great way to add life to the space. I personally like the way ferns look, as they hang over the shelf and add some great height, color and texture to the shelves. I also like to keep peonies on the shelf when in season, but you could add any type of plants or succulents to make the shelves pop!
THINK ABOUT THE SPACE AROUND THE BOOKSHELVES: in my first apartment, I had a white IKEA bookshelf placed next to an older trunk basket from the flea market. I would think of the two as a set and try to arrange accordingly – take the photo below as an example. I would put fresh flowers next to the bookshelf, rather than on it (not enough room!) and also place pretty books next to the flowers on the trunk. In my current apartment, we have a gold bart cart under our hanging bookshelves and a big plant next to it. I love the way it looks!
