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Best Living Room Bookcase Ideas For A Harmonious Home

Whether you are a voracious reader or simply need bookcase ideas to keep homework and reference books off the kitchen table, a well-considered bookcase can bring order and a visual focus to even a small space.

living room side table with books

Whether you are a voracious reader or simply need bookcase ideas to keep homework and reference books off the kitchen table, a well-considered bookcase can bring order and a visual focus to even a small space. Taken to the next level, a bookshelf can become a stunning piece of furniture in its own right, by far transcending the standard workhorse white shelves. For some enlightening ideas on how to use bookshelves or bookcases to accent your décor and restore order, read on.

Living room with white Shutters

Think Big

Why stop at shelves? This bookcase, with handy under-seat drawers for cosy blankets to use whilst enjoying those books on the window seat, is a bookworms’ dream. It’s the ideal way to take a dull part of a room and make it an enclosed world. By adding in elegant white wooden shutters and low doors to house less attractive clutter, a once plain room will become a house favourite.

Blue living room with white translucent patterned design Roller blinds

Go Bold

For those blessed with high ceilings, a tall shelving unit can add an imposing elegance and give the room’s height a purpose. Although a white bookcase would add a fresh plantation house-style feel, the black shallow bookcase gives this plain design a contemporary, Eastern feel. Leaving the back wall the same colour as the rest of the room makes the lines of the shelving a striking graphic detail.

living room bookshelf decorations

Use every inch

If you have some awkward spaces crying out for a bit of attention, then slim floating bookshelves can work as wonderful space fillers. Here the rough-hewn stone of a rustic bookcase creates a design talking point that a plain white bookshelf simply couldn’t muster. Using rough-hewn wood also works well for a corner bookcase, adding texture and visual interest without demanding too much space.

Living room bookshelf

Read the room

Wall mounted bookshelves can release floor space and break up long expanses of wall that might otherwise flatten a scheme. For a truly modern bookcase curate the items artfully in colour, shape or tone; or a combination of all three. Turn the spines of these books to the wall so that a variation of parchment shades create a calm, vintage-feeling effect. This works especially well on a storage cube bookcase, creating a pleasing juxtaposition of modernity and classicism.

Living room with white Shutters

Into the background

If you want wall bookshelves that won’t dominate the room, then use wooden shelving units painted the same colour as the rest of the wall, allowing them to recede into the space. This way the colour of books pops, making them seem like objet d’art, in the same way the album covers become objects when displayed. For a cost-effective solution, if a fully bespoke version is beyond your budget, then even a cheap bookcase painted in the same hue as the rest of the room will still have a similar effect.

living room with white wooden shutters

Open Case

An open bookcase can also work as a freestanding piece of furniture. This large bookshelf, which can hold art books or oversized children’s stories is easy to access and great for heavy tomes that may make shelves sag, as it uses the floor for extra support. A white gloss bookcase makes ideas kids bookshelves, as they are easy to clean, (sticky fingers) and here, being at floor level, make it easy for children to help themselves to entertainment and hopefully tidy up after themselves.

living room bookcase decoration

Go naked

The most contemporary bookcase? No bookshelf at all. Books are often displayed now as objects in colourful tableaus. It may be that one simple oak bookshelf artfully styled is enough, whilst you filter and plan the best bookshelf ideas for keeping your library safe. And growing.

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