How to Organize and Style Your Bookcases

Making your bookcases look design ready can be very difficult when they’re chock full of books. But while it’s much easier to style half empty bookcases, it’s not impossible to make one that’s bursting look a lot better. It’s just a matter of like with like and a few pops of contrast here and there to break up the long line of books. The only idea you need to let go of is alphabetizing.

Organize your books by subject, — yes we know how important this is to bookophiles — but then within the subject, organize the books by size. It looks even better if you can separate your hardcovers from the softcovers, but it’s not necessary. Then put them all in a row from big to small. Now usually we just keep adding till the bookshelves are filled with rows and rows of vertical lines. To add a designer touch you need to break up the vertical lines. The best way to do this is to take a stack of almost identically sized books and put them on their side so it’s a horizontal line. Do this on every shelf but in varying locations. Voila! Much better.

Now add a few tchotchkes here and there, and you too can make your bookshelves both organized and ready for their close up!