Home Decorating Styles
For Book Lovers
Home decorating styles of a lot of homes have you entering the living room so that it is one of the first rooms you see upon entering.
This sets the tone of your home and can influence and inspire you for the rest of the house.
The name of these rooms and the purpose vary from home to home and in houses with family rooms the living room can take on a more formal feel and doesn't get used much.
Instead create a user friendly living room. Everyone craves an area we can call our own for reading, working on the computer, homework, watching tv or pursuing a hobby. Define the space by how you will want the room be used and the home decorating styles you desire for the room.
Do you want a casual and comfortable feel to the room or a formal setting?
Will there be a tv?
A study describes a small sitting room that is often more cozy than a formal living room.
Or a library, which by it’s very nature is a room for the enjoyment and storing and displaying of books, and is sometimes combined with a study and used as a work area.
Turning the living room into a library gives you an opportunity for the use of shelves and bookcases. This will add architectural interest and an added dimension to the room especially if one was lacking.
You can have shelving custom built for the size of your room and tailor made to match the home decorating styles of your room scheme and for the heights of the books in your collection.
Bookshelves can flank a fireplace, be built to go over the doors and windows, cover an entire wall or just below the ceiling around the perimeter of the room.
If you choose not to go with built ins, select freestanding bookcases available in a variety of sizes and styles, that you can later take with you if you move or relocate into another room of the house you’re in.
Bookcases can have an open back or be a closed unit. If the bookcase is open in the back, the wall behind the books will be visible. Paint the wall to compliment most of the bindings on the books so not to be distracting, or contrast to draw attention.
Place decorative baskets or containers on the shelves to break up the orderly display of books and provide storage. This will also add another dimension and texture to the shelving through the basketry and more color with decorative boxes.
Larger baskets can go on the bottom shelves for periodicals and magazines. Otherwise, they get messy and the room feels cluttered if left out.
Bookcases can be in a stained finish with a painted back to contrast, which is appealing in home decorating styles of a French country environment.
The book titles of your favorite authors reveal much about you and along with the creative display of books you can also showcase a favorite collection, photos, favorite paintings and personal possessions.
Think about how you want to arrange your books and other publications to make an artistic but comfortable live in statements.
Take stock of books you already have to shelve and sort according to size and genre. Take a page from the bookstore and face the front of some of the books out so they are facing directly forward.
Less is more when it comes to home decorating styles of display. Arrange the shelves neatly. Leave negative space between books so the shelves don't appear too heavy. This gives you an opportunity to display art, photos and other accents.
Put the larger books and objects on bottom shelves and the smaller items higher, allowing for breathing space above the books.
Displaying books with the dust jackets removed will give you a more uniform appearance.
And not be quite as busy looking.
If you enjoy the color of the book jackets keep them on to use as display in other rooms.
Your books don’t have to stay in the library.
Co-ordinate the book jacket colors to the color of the room. If you have a blue bedroom, place your blue jacket art books and use as an accessory or to lift a too short lamp or elevate a decorative box or vase.
You can wrap books in paper (find pretty paper at an art store) that blend or co-ordinate with the room like when we were kids and had to cover our schoolbooks with brown paper grocery bags. (Remember that?)
Prop one of your favorite paintings on the shelves of the bookcases.
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