Now that our house is getting close to how we want it, we’re giving more careful consideration to the things we put back in the space. Books are an especially tricky subject for us. In general, I love the look of books in people’s homes – not just as decor, but because they typically are a window into the personalities of the people who live there. Kyle likes the more minimal look, not wanting to intimidate people by our awesome literary collection (yes, that’s Harry Potter in the middle top row).
A few weeks ago, I moved most of our books (we still have a good deal of reference books and text books that will stay in the basement) back upstairs and very loosely arranged them on the new stair cabinet shelves. Even though we’ll be putting doors over these cabinets, it’s still feeling a little cluttered for me. Do we really need all these books? We’re definitely the type to have books more for their importance rather than because we’ll re-read them over and over (in fact, I’m sure there are many that haven’t been read at all). Architecture books definitely fall in this category and comprise about half of what we own (fortunately, we have greatly reduced this spendy habit). But y’know…someday I will probably want to brush up on 14th century Italian architecture, right?
Plus, all these books are impinging on our plan to the turn the far right cabinet into a mini bar. The books to booze ratio is definitely off.
So what are your thoughts on displaying books in a small space? I wish we had more options but after demolishing most of our interior walls, the pickings are slim. Oh, and what do people do with photo albums nowadays? Ours stop circa 2003 but we still have a small stack of albums that chronicle our lives pre-digital age.