Your Bookshelves

I was inspired by Busifer's awesome shelves to post pics of my own. I'd love to see your bookshelves and reading areas guys. If you feel so inclined, post some pics!

This is our office upstairs:


And this is my downstairs. This was taken about a year ago, and the books have started to pile up around on any flat surface you can see in this picture. Also, I mostly just have trade paperbacks and hardbacks out on display. The big cubby under the TV is actually a solid four and a half foot by three foot by three foot cube of mass market paperbacks.

This is a bit off topic, but I've been debating whether or not to paint my living room red or not, and your pic just made up my mind. I think it looks great.

Nice shelves, btw!

Dressagegrrrl - I am envious of many things in those pictures...the shelves, the spiral staircase (although I know those have their down sides), and right now, most of all, the windows. My current apartment is very low on windows in the rooms I'm in most often.

I don't have any particularly interesting bookshelves right now, but I look forward to seeing everyone else's.

verra nice

>#2 - Just make sure that room you want to paint red gets a lot of light! That room is great. Our bedroom is very dark and also red and it just makes it look dire!

>#3 - I quite like the picture where you've organized your books in color order!

DON'T be jealous of the windows. It's FREEZING in the winter, and some punk kid just broke one. Our house is on the historic registry of Wilmington, DE and it's going to cost $2500 to replace it per their instructions.

Here is what we are working on in our main living area for shelves. (This bank is complete - though we want to eventually paint the walls - kinda did it backwards...) These are some of the mass market PB's. Hardbacks are either in the pic below, or piled on assorted shelves throughout the house awaiting their permanant home. :)


whoops - posted before I was done...

This is what we have in the other part of the living area for now, though I hope to incorporate more shelves like the first pic w/ a TV stand in the middle. The existing shelves could then be moved to another room.



edited to correct second photo...bah

mi2 - Those white bookcases looks really good! I have a feeling that I recognize the the CD-case on the far right... Is it IKEA? Looks like the "Benno" shelves we store our CD's in...
And the bookcases are maybe the "Billy" ones?

OK, some encores and some new -

Newly repainted living room/main fiction -


Home office/main non-fiction -


Home office/Our main "don't fit anywhere" book case, bought in panic/main graphic novels, folios, coffee table books, VHS cassettes + some DVD's -


There's another set of String shelving in our home office, same size as the middle one above, stuffed with magazines and, you know, home office papers and stuff...
No pics at this time of the other four main "bookcases" (travel books, encyclopedia, cooking books, YA, kids books). Maybe I post them later.

I've got the pictures but am not sure how to post them - could someone please tell me the code to use? Thanks :)

first you have to have them hosted at a web site such as http://www.flickr.com

>7 Busifer: Busifer
Exactly! Ikea Billy and Benno! I was so glad to find a series of shelves (Billy) where you could actually just buy additional shelves! All the others you get 5 shelves only - even if they are adjustable. I always have wasted space or have to stack books on top of books. That works, but I do not like it as well as what we did here. Got the idea from a photo of a custom bookshelf, but since we are not "handy" I never did anything with that idea - until I found the magical wonderland called IKEA! hehehe. We have an actual U.S. store location about 10 minutes from us, so it is easy to buy too.

Thanks for the compliment - I like it, but it is still nowhere near enough room. :P We will get there though. When I get home tonight I may see if I have any pics of how we used to have our books.

Oh and we do have ours sorted by genre, alphabetical by author, and chronologically by series. The white shelves are all SFF/Horror. It encompases mass market PB only, Authors A-R. The brown shelf on the left is all cookbooks grouped by food type, the brown one on the right is currently misc. hardbacks while we work on the rest of the system. :)

mi2, I LOVE the bookshelves. You guys did a really nice job putting it all together! We have a couple IKEA shelves in our house, too! Best ever.

>14 dressagegrrrl: thanks dressagegrl! Now if I could just be brave enough to paint in bright colors like you did! :) Love the red!

Busifer, what is "String" shelving? Is that a brand?

This is such a wonderful topic! I love seeing pictures of other peoples' libraries. I've been meaning to take some more current photos of my books for quite a while, and this just might give me the incentive to do it.

I'm enjoying this too, and I am getting some ideas that I can use when my college son's room officially becomes mine. (There's a post in another thread about this one.)

These are what we have been converting from...effective, but buried in a back room. Before we decided to migrate them all, we had 4 of the mid-size free-standing shelves around that room. (only one at the time this pic was taken) Now those have ended up in an interesting spot - I will have to take more pics before we change it again. They hold all hubby's RPG game books.

#15 - Yes, "string" is the brand. They where designed by a guy named Nils Strinning. He was a part of the movement to make effeicient, functional, affordable and DESIGNED funtiture and stuff into the homes of ordinary people.
The reproductions are not very affordable, but when bought 2nd hand here they go at like USD 10 a section (2 gables, 3 shelves).

>19 Busifer: that is pretty reasonable! They look a lot nicer than what we have. I am debating a trip to Ikea this weekend to start on the next bank of shelves. I should see if they have anything like those.

Nobody's retro enough to have cinderblock and unfinished 1x4 planks?

C'mon, you college kids! ;)

#21 O.K. Linkmeister, how did you know? I have two sets of bookshelves made of cinderblock and, well, only one set is unfinished wood, the ones in my livingroom are sanded and stained anyway.

My dream is to cut into the walls of my livingroom and make shelves like Elrond's in Rivendell. Sadly, my husband is not so inclined, nor is that where his talent lies. Sigh.

Grins. How did I know? Nearly every room in the fraternity house I lived in between 1968-1972 had those. Don't ask how we acquired the raw materials, though; I'm not sure what the statute of limitations is.

>21 Linkmeister: - Linkmeister - nah, my preferred shelfing in college was milk crates... you didn't have to pack/unpack when you moved, you could just tip them up and carry them to the car.

I can do po'-grad-student shelving, though:


This isn't all of my books; there's cookbooks and field guides and a big stack of (more) TBR books elsewhere in the house, some at work, and an equivalently-stuffed bookcase still at my parents' house.

...I'm kind of embarassed to post this after everyone else's beautiful, organized shelves with evenly placed artwork and only single-stacked books. Eep!

fyrefly98 - The only thing that saves me embarrassment is my lack of technical knowledge in getting the pictures here. So for you all, I have beautiful, well organized neatly shelved bookshelves. ;)

fyrefly, I'll post a pic of my bedroom floor. That'll make you feel much better.

Meanwhile, here's what the main shelves looked like in the midst of my first LT cataloging pass.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56759872@N00/58113506/

How do you folks embed the photos in here?

I'm go jealous! "Pea green with envy" as Scarlett would say. I'm moving soon so my books are all in boxes and my shelves are empty. *sigh* It's depressing. Hopefully I'll have the books out where they can breathe in June!

I do like all of the ideas I'm getting here.

>26 Linkmeister: Linkmeister - the code is {img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/30/58113506_8980dca10f.jpg?v=0"}, with the brackets replaced by angle brackets (greaterthan/lessthan). I got the code for you picture by right-clicking and "Copy Image Address".

Also, if you click on the "more sizes" option from a photopage in flickr, down at the bottom it will give you a little box that generates the code for you.

ok...here is my hidden shame for you all to see...

I think I mentioned last week that I have purchased new shelves and furniture to transform a room of my house into my library/reading room. Right now, that room is where the books are stacked until the shelving arrives...I keep the door closed.

Here is the "desk" covered in books. And yes, those are milk crates and laundry baskets filled with books.



Next for your viewing pleasure is the current bookshelf in the same room.



Finally there is one built in bookcase in the hallway. It is messy too. The dog just likes to have his picture taken :)



We will consider these my "before" pictures. When the bookcases and furniture arrive (about 6 weeks) I will post my new and improved room.

Ah. I'm all for auto-generated code. (I can do HTML, but...)

Ok, so the pic I linked above should appear below:


And I'll be darned, it does.

This was taken in Oct 2005; they're much tidier now.

Thanks, firefly! (note to Flickr users: it's the "all sizes" radio button at the top of your picture)

I love book porn. Seeing all of your bookshelves literally makes me salivate in ecstasy.

And makes me want to visit the nearest bookstore.

Ok - these pictures are a little out of date, but they're close to how my books are set up now. (I can't take new pictures because I'm not at home :)

Large books (mostly jewelry and art books) and random ones that don't fit in other places.


Mass market paperbacks and small hardbacks on the top two shelves; F&SF magazines and books in, er, not very good condition on the bottom shelf.


Hardbacks and trade paperbacks:

okay, I'll try again, here goes...

these two are in our den and are the non-fiction:



then, in the hallway, on the bookcase my dad made me many years ago:



and then my fiction, in the living room:



let's hope it works this time...

(I have another couple of little bookcases in bedrooms, but they're kinda crammed in and it's hard to get a picture of them!)

>32 bluesalamanders: bluesalamanders - I've been having fun trying to see if I can recognize anyone's books by their spines, and so far yours are the only ones I've been able to get (that I couldn't just read)... we've got the same edition of The Three Musketeers and I can pick out An Acceptable Time on the same shelf. :)

firefly, I said I'd take pix of the bedroom: ;)

These are Amelia Peabody/Barbara Michaels (mostly)


These are mostly J.D. Robb and other Nora Roberts books. I got sucked into the Eve Dallas series and thought I'd try Roberts' other works. I discovered there was a lot more story and a lot less mush than I had previously thought.



On the chairs near the bed. I move 'em onto the bed when I want the chair and back when I want to sleep. ;)

34 fyrefly98

Oh, fun! Now I have to go back and try that.

*looks*

Well, I can see Harry Potter, our shared Three Musketeers, and what looks like some GRRM on your shelves, but that's about all I can pick out anywhere :)

fyrefly98 -- I love how you found a use for all those amazon boxes! And here I was throwing them away. No more.

Well, before anyone goes thinking ALL of our books are as nice and organized as the one bank of shelves...here are the other stashing areas around the house that are waiting for their more organized homes!

stash spot by hubby's desk:


Stash spot by my desk (recently added the milk crate shelving - used to be just a pile o' books)


hubby's RPG books and random stash spot:


misc locations around the house including what the "old" shelves look like now:


edited because I tried to use photobuckets generator and it did not work...

>26 Linkmeister: bluesalamanders - Yup, there's A Feast for Crows on the shelf and the first three tucked down in the Box o' David Eddings on the bottom.

>37 kageeh: kageeh - Well, that's certainly not *all* the amazon boxes in this house... the fact that so many come in explains why I have to use so many to store! They do fit mass-market paperbacks two across quite nicely, though.

Well those pics prove one thing - nobody has enough space for all of their books.

Awesome topic, and it actually inspired me to open a flickr account...

So here goes my mess.

Mostly reference, dictionaries, non-fiction and French books in the bedroom


A wild mix of German, English, Italian fiction, non-fiction and travel guides in the bedroom


Another unorganized mix of German and English fiction in the living room


And a few piles awaiting the arrival of some new Billy shelves


There are more books in the basement, but they're all in bags and boxes and wouldn't make interesting pictures...

Mess? Way too neat Thalia. You are making the rest of us look bad. ;o)

I should have used quotes... Yeah, I confess I am a neat freak. You have probably noticed that even most of my piles are organized according to size.
I'm so obsessed with order that I only have one shelf that has a second row of books (Dean Koontz is hiding behind the travel guides).
I can't believe I haven't organized the order of my books yet though. I just can't figure out a good way to do it. If I do it by author, I'll have to move all the books every time I purchase something, plus some of the books by the same author are hardbacks, mass paperbacks and trade paperbacks which means using less shelves and therefore losing space...
Aaaah, too complicated. Thankfully, so far I still know where each and every one of my books is.

I organize fiction by author, mixing hardbacks, mass pb and trade pb and diverse other formats... and I'm still alive so I know it can be done ;-)
The result can be seen in msg #8. You just have to set on a "largest book decides distance between shelves" rule when setting up bookcases, plus leaving space at various places so it's easy to put new ones where they should be...

I may try to do it when I get those two new shelves. I went to Ikea just to get those and they didn't have them which was a first. They told me they'd have them in another month... and I am very impatient.
Well, my wall space is very limited so those are the last two shelves I can get. The roommates alrady didn't like me taking over that one wall in the living room. So I'll try to figure out if I even have enough room to reorganize when I have the shelves set up.

Edited to add: The books on the floor aren't the only ones that will go into the new shelves. There are more piles around the room and I wanted to move some childhood favorites from the basement upstairs...

Here are mine. I apologize for the glare in some of them; I don't have proper light-blocking curtains, and many of my bookshelf-related windows are quite sunny at this time of day.

Apologies also for the blurriness. I have a rather ghastly camera.



My primary bookshelf. The books jammed under it and stacked off to the side are the TBRs I'll admit to. There are more shoved behind the first row.



A nice little fantasy-oriented section above my television.



Some children's and YA things helping fill the gaps in between my stero and its speakers.



Agatha Christie, Jackie Collins, and a variety of cookbooks in the closet. (The others live beside the potatos down in the kitchen; I didn't feel like moving said potatos to get a picture of them).



Some travel guides and interior design books live in the top shelf of the closet, along with a rather creepy doll and some My Little Ponies.



Old books, Edgar Rice Burroughs, some secondary copies, old children's things, The Wheel of Time, some academic books... kind of a hodgepodge, all stuck under the window in my ghetto, unfinished basement.



Some more academic stuff, along with a portion of my folklore library. Also from my ghetto basement.



Lastly, my secondary TBR shelf. It's shoved right at the back of my crawl space, and I like to pretend it doesn't exist.

#45 - It is always irritating when you have decided to do something, and then the shop doesn't have what ypu camre for!

And as to the sorting thing... I'll easily admit that it's easier said than done, and that I'm greatly helped by our move two years ago - it made it possible to restart from the beginning ;-)

Maybe I should move :-)

Thank goodness for Ikea - it looks like we should all take stock out in the company! Our closest store is an expensive ferry ride away but next time we go to the mainland Ikea is the first place I'm heading for. I need at least one more bookcase :)

Yeah, I just love bookcases where you can buy extra shelves and arrange them however is best for you. I just don't know why they got rid of the 60cm Billy. It was my favorite one...

Well, a trip to Ikea is also an undertaking for me since I don't have a car and always depend on someone else taking pity on me and driving me there, and me and some bookshelves back home... So far one of my roommates has been nice enough to do it and she's the only one with a big enough car so we don't have anything sticking out the back... or I don't have to be strapped to the roof on the way home :-)

#49 - No IKEA stock is available - it's a privately held company, still controlled by the founder - mr. Ingvar Kamprad. But if it was out there to buy I sure would do it!
A look a the pics here told me the some things swedish have travelled far away indeed, and with all of these biblioholics around there will be am evergoing need in flexible and affordable shelving, hehe.

And Mr Kamprad is the richest person living in Switzerland. Not in my town unfortunately, that would lower my taxes considerably...
I love my Billys and Bennos and will continue to make him even richer :-)

Ikea is making a killing here in Italy too. It's hard to find a parking space there at the weekends. I have used their things for years. The book cases are great and easy to put together. Your houses all look so neat. I'm afraid of taking a picture of my shelves as they are overflowing

misskate, if I can embarrass myself (see #35), anyone can. ;)

I have to say I love this thread! hehe

It disturbs me a bit not to have all of my books by author, but not as much as not having them all on shelves. That is why I opted to sort in the following order:
genre
size
author

When I get the next round of shelving, I plan on finishing the SFF mass market pb's and then starting the SFF hardbacks. I felt like I needed to maximize space first. Besides, if I need to see all the books I have by one author, I can just look on LT! :D (If I ever get them all scanned =0)

I need another bookcase as well but I can't convince my husband of that. He likes books but he is not a re-reader so he doesn't see sense in keeping books. He only tolerates my habit because he loves me and I must keep my books in the back bedroom.

I joined this group today, so thought I should jump on the bandwagon here and post a pic of my fiction collection (or try to, anyway; not sure about my code):



Yeah, it's a tiny, tiny photo. I'm not highly computer literate, sorry. Suffice it to say that this is my fiction collection (not including my fantasy books). Eight stacking/folding bookcases! They haven't been cataloged yet; I'm still working on entering my non-fiction.

I took a couple of other pics of my books. I wanted to show the solid cube of books in my entertainment center. We moved from a rented three bedroom house to a two bedroom condo, so I had to get rid of tons of bookshelves.







These books were gifts from my father when I turned ten. It's the Franklin Library's 100 Greatest Classics of all Time.

I really wish we had an Ikea here. Apparently Ikea fills the most mail orders from my city, and for some reason that means that they're less inclined to put an actual store here. I'm not too sure what the reasoning behind that is; I mean, if people are buying tons of stuff even with the shipping fee thrown in, just think of all the stuff they'd buy if they could just wander into a store!

Ikea is also the only place I've found that has practical bookends. It's not that the fancy ones aren't pretty, but they take up too much shelf space. I bought a couple of good Bokis bookends the last time I was in an Ikea, but now it turns out that I actually need about ten of them... and I have no way of buying more without making the long, long drive down to Minneapolis. You can't even order them through the website. Blah.

Message 59: xicanti -- I found squeezing in as many books as possible onto a shelf serves as its own bookends. Not grammatically correct but you get the idea. Why buy bookends when you can just buy more books?

60 Kageeh

That doesn't always work. I have stored books on shelves that didn't have sides, so there wasn't anything for the books to squeeze between.

Although currently my one bookend is being used for DVDs, not books, that are in that situation. My books are completely filling my bookcases and I'm going to have to start rearranging stuff, since I, er, keep buying new books...

#60 kageeh - that works with shelves that have ends, but most of mine, (see above), are open-ended. They definitely require bookends so the volumes don't fall off and crush innocent bystanders.

#62... I'm getting hese internal pictures of avalanches, crashing down from the mountains...!

#63 - We know all about those avalanches in this house Busifer! Also, I dread a big earthquake, a very real possibility in CA.

A way to have a bookend and store more books, use books stacked horizontally at the end of the shelves. Heavy ones.

I have Ikea withdrawal!
The nearest one is 2 1/2 hours from here, which is the furthest I've ever lived from Ikea.

Okay, I'm going to try to get my photos from Flickr - I've been reading your instructions from above, but don't seem to be getting the same messages. Let me just try:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/177/453311397_8a006d46ee.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/235/453311411_67e33f2cf2.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/214/453311429_fd15afac3f.jpg

Okay, so what step am I missing to make this work?

put a less than symbol (triangular bracket) followed by IMG SRC=then put quotes around your http address and close the whole thing with a greater-than symbol

Like this but with (less than and greater than symbols) instead of {}
{img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/177/453311397_8a006d46ee.jpg"}

Okay, thanks. I'm going to try again!







Okay... I'm feeling foolish now. Any other suggestions?

Ack!! It worked!! But where are the little commentaries I wrote up in Flickr??

You've directly linked to the photo, not to the Flickr page which contains it; that's why the commentaries can't be seen. The easy way to let viewers see those is to post a link to your Flickr main page (which shows your Flickr user name). Go to it, copy the address in the browser and paste it here.

They're wonderful pix nonetheless.

Ah! If I'd used the other code instead of the url would that have worked better?

Yeah, although I don't think the commentaries would show (see mine in #35 above). What that does, though, is provide a link to the flickr page. All the viewer has to do is click on the picture itself.

See mine; notice the cursor becomes a hand when you roll it over my pictures? Click on it and takes you to the Flickr page.

Ah! Okay, so the comments on photos above are simply added in this window. Thanks! Now, if only I can remember all this for next time!! :)

hey BookBowery, the first photo - are those modualr store-bought or homemade - I really like them! (The black ones on the red wall)

Thanks. Those are homemade - couldn't begin to afford to buy them!! Cheap cheap cheap! MDF board, stained a deep brown. Assembled without nails - my husband is a handy man so I can't remember what that technique is called. He made them; I sanded and stained them. We made them in different sizes to add variety, but so that they'd stack neatly. Darn Sturdy!! I use them for stools if I need to reach the top shelves. We have a couple attached to the wall for decorations. I wanted a few for end tables, but we didn't quite get that far.

::studies the pics more closely, making mental notes::

I can get MDF relatively cheap too. Now to decide if it is worth the great look to do that or if I'm better off sticking with Ikea...hmmm....

looks like you really just have 2 sizes - one square and one rectangle the size of 2 squares stacked.

Too funny! Let me give you some more information to help you decide:
- it took about a week. Hubby built them in the evening and I sanded/stained during the day.
- mdf dust is hideous. And the stain smells wretched. Work outside or in a well ventilated area.
- cheap. Did I mention cheap??
- sturdy. versatile.
- yes, two different sizes. But easy to rearrange.
- many many many compliments. often. regularly.
- I was mistaken when I said there were no nails: hubby used a biscuit joiner to strengthen the boxes and then air nailed them together as well.


This is a view of the length of the room.


This is a close up of the modulars on the wall.

Hope that helps you with your decision making!

Thanks! Now just have to see if my non-handyman hubby will buy in. :P

I'll give it a try...hope I get the coding right ;-) Here goes...

I'll start with the expensive ones, which I bought after I sold my house...couldn't have afforded them otherwise.

Tall one has Literature, Religion, Spiritual, and Higher Ed / Student Services -- bottom shelf belongs to Rudy and has photo and railroad books mostly:


Short one is mostly history, political science, and travel:


I built these two in January. They started out less than half full -- I've filled them in two months. The left is primarily children & young adult books with misc books on top shelf. The right is general fiction -- fantasy and sci fi, mostly:


I've had these almost 20 years. Just MDF covered with something black that's not paint or stain. Just put it together yourself shelves filled with Psychology and Alcohol & Drug Counseling books:


Deep breath and click "Submit"...

**oh, the black book cases used to be overflowing with dvds but I bought those binder storage things and put all the dvd cases in storage and the dvds in the binders. Wow. What a space saver -- more room for books! ;-)

If you want a discussion to end, ask me to post. It's almost inevitable that I'll be the bookend. ;-)

#81- What? I thought that was my purpose here. ;o)

#81-82 and here I thought that it was MY purpose here!

i ask you, WHAT'S HAPPENING TO MY SPECIAL PURPOSE?

#83 - Now you're making ME blush, dude. ;o)

82-84> Both of you need to back off of MY purpose! ;-)

#85 - Well, if you insist.

;o)

I've noticed many people here have red walls. I do, too. It must be the color of highly intelligent or crazy people.

When we moved from a house with a library (ceiling to floor built-in shelves filling one entire wall), I had to design a library for the new home. I couldn't stand having my library in boxes stacked in a corner. At that time, it was about 1,500 volumes.

I shopped around quite a bit. I wanted something that I could affort, but which could be re-configured if necessary as we settled into our new home. I ended up with Scandia from Container Store, which is about as easy to put together as Tinker Toys The only tool required - a screwdriver to attach rear bracing. We have a converted garage which is now mostly library, and here is how it turned out (now at about 2,400 volumes):

Looking into the library, you can see about two-thirds of the shelves.




Standing in the room, here are a series of views:

The west wall




The south wall, showing the window seat and computer nook (wish I'd straightened up my desk first)




And the north and east walls (these are free standing with a corner unit. This allowed space for storage and a craft table in a 'hallway' behind these units.




Details of the window seat - I used a specialized Scandia shelf desinged as a desktop, cutting the legs down so it would be at sitting height instead of desk height. This section of the wall of shelves is in front of a window (with closed blinds to reduce UV effects on the books).





Elsewhere in the house...

A stack of old 'barrister' bookshelves in a reading corner, containing my Shakespeare and Dickins collections. I love these old barristers, but beware: the mechanism for opening the doors on the older ones can damage the tops of the taller volumes. The bookstand on the left and the small table in the foreground are loaded with dictionaries and literary references for easy reach when reading.




The only built in bookshelves in the house, in our music room, which contains most of our our music (print) library.




These photos account for nearly all the books in the house, except for the kids' books, which occupy a few shelves on basic, stand-alone bookcases in each bedroom.

O.

#8 - Holy BLEEP! That's alottah books! Looks great, too. Love the various reading chairs, too.

I'm jealous! Those are absolutely wonderful!!

> 88

Wow! I'm impressed!

On my profile page, I give the dimensions of a garage space I want to convert myself. I don't collect antiquarian books. Most of mine are paperbacks, not more than 30 years old, so I'm interested in adding skylights. I live in a colder climate, with short summers, so I'll take as much natural light as I can get!

I am particularily interested in how you approached the floors in your converted space. I assume you also started off with a concrete floor. Did you simply lay down a sub-floor with underlay and carpet on top, or was it more complicated than that?

I am also curious as to how you approached the issue of electric lighting in the centre of your room (your ceiling lights are hard to see in your photographs).

>91 Autodafe:
It's all kept pretty simple, really. Yes, the floor was bare but very clean concrete when we moved in. I put down indoor/outdoor industrial carpet tiles (with rubberized pad/backing) directly on the concrete. This is primarily because we knew this would be temporary - this will become the kids' game room in another year or so, which is also why I needed shelving that would be flexible and re-configurable. If it were to be for the long haul, I probably would have given more thought to the floor. We're also in a dry climate, sitting on weathered limestone, so moisture coming up through the floor is not really an issue.

Regarding lighting, right now there is a central ceiling fan/light that was already there (you can see the pull chains in some photos). I've added a row of track lights along one side of the free-standing 'L' side of the room (one fixture is visible in one of the photos). All other lighting is a combination of desk, floor, and a couple of 'clamp-on' lamps (you can see the glow of the two clamp-ons in the corner behind and above the desk.

As I said, flexibility is the key right now.

O.

>89 clamairy:, 90, and 91

I appreciate the nice comments.

If you really want to drool, check out At Home With Books by Estelle Ellis.

O.

>88 Osbaldistone:

stunning, just stunning.

Well I don't have as many books as many of you do & have yet to figure out how to put pictures online, but I have just upgraded the main bookshelf in my room. I replaced the wimpy, cheap shelf unit that held all my heftiest books (it was sagging in the middle) w/an oak shelf that matches the rest of my bedroom set. It is built like the proverbial 'brick outhouse'. I also have an oak barrister's bookcase in which I keep the oldest volumes & a lot of reference books also. It, of course, has individual glass doors & the top one is leaded & beveled glass. I have my best collectibles on that top shelf i.e. dragons, rocks, & small antiques. There is a small cheap bookcase at the foot of the bed which I wouuld like to replace & a wall hung unit above the computer cart w/ paperbacks & collectibles. There is also a pine shelf w/my electronics & other collectibles in it. Last but not least there is the bookcase headboard of my bed also in oak & matching all the other pieces. Oh the 'mates bed has a storage cubby in addition to 4 drawers for clothing. There is also a bedside table (oak) which resembles a small hutch as it has book shelf attatched-all of the shelves & the cubby in the bottom are stuffed full of Tolkien (see my library). P.S. The overflow is in my storage unit! P.P.S. The local library sale is tomorrow morning!!! P.P.P.S. HELP!!!

O.K. I tried to photograph my bookshelves and post them on flicker. I think this is the link, I did mark them public.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9098776@N06/?saved=1

I love your pictures MrsLee, great bookshelves all through the house. And your cats are gorgeous. You both look so comfy sitting in your chair reading. :-)

She's my winter lap-warmer, but lately she's decided to keep me lively, she keeps attacking my hand that's holding the book. Guess I'm not worshiping her enough!

I am sooo jelous!!! (of the lap warmer as well as the bookshelves, lol)

Once I'm all unpacked, I'll photograph all my books, on my 2 shelves & post, but u'v all put me to shame :(

Seanie - As I recall, you are maybe half my age. I have a pitiful picture in my photo album of our one bookshelf when I was first married in my early twenties. It isn't even halfway full! Those were the days when I never kept paperbacks, hadn't started collecting and thought I had to get rid of them all. I miss some of those I parted with to this day. I can't remember the title or author, so I can't even replace them. Wish I had been journaling then.

I hear you MrsLee, I've been scrapbooking the last few weeks, going through boxes of old photos. And there are pictures of us when we were first married with the one little bookcase filled with books. We lived in a relatively isolated area (i.e. NO bookstore!) so I belonged to the Quality Paperback Book Club. There are lots of those I wish now that I'd kept. I wish I'd kept a book journal then too. I only just started journaling my reading this year, thanks to LT, never occured to me before!

Seanie, don't worry, it won't take you any time at all to build up your collection. :-)

102 katylit

I just started keeping track of my reading last year - I wish I had started earlier, too. I read so many books over the past ten, fifteen years that I don't remember at all.

I dont keep track of my reading & I really should... What do you guys mean when you say "journaling"? How do you keep track? In some sort of diary format or somewhere in your library on here???

I keep a journal - just a small blank book. I enter the title, author, start/finish dates, and enter comments, observations, quotes, passages to revisit, etc., as I read. I don't like to write in my books, so this is where my notes/comments go.

I also started an MS-Excel spreadsheet in Jan 2000 to keep a list of the books I want to read and to mark them when I've read them. It helps me remember that book I shelved when I didn't have time to read it, and also lets me see how many I've read over the past 7 yrs.

Os.

#104 - there are date started and read fields available here along with comments and reviews should you choose to use them - this was the orginal purpose of LT apparently, somewhere to store marginalia. This feature hasn't yet arrived!

Seanie - agree with those who say that if you just wait some years your bookcases will fill up and multiply, one after another ;-)
It takes some years, and money, to acquire a collection.

Personally I regret (and not - no way I had been able to read all those books in some other way!) all the library loans in my teens. I read hundreds of books each year, mostly classic sf and ya fantasy, and no way I can acquire those books now - I don't even have the time to reread and revalue some of the books that I own but read too long ago to remember clearly!

104 Seanie

I started out on my livejournal, but I also use the 50 book challenge group here on LT to keep track.

I think book-journaling is my #1 use of LT. I kept dates finished on the inside cover(s) of my actual journal for about three years prior to finding LT, but now all of my start/end, reviews, etc. are here. I only wish I'd started marking down dates read sooner!

Also, I went back and looked through all of the pictures on this thread, and am horribly embarrassed by my bookcase. I moved recently, bought a new (bigger) case, and both of my cases are already full and starting to be double-stacked. I'll have to take new pictures...

Seanie - There is an excellent thread on journaling the books you read in the Reading Resolutions group. I'm not clever enough to link you there, but there are some great ideas if you want to search for it.

Thanx guys, ur all so helpful :) I've just put a few dates in the started & read fields in my library, I can only really remember back a month or 2, lol, shows how much I really should be keeping track...

Fiction, from my bedroom


Plus starting on the next set of shelves...


This is just language books (with a one or two lazy fiction books...). I'm just a little obsessive (note the teach yourself shelf). From my other room (my "study")

Edit: I just did the rotations in flickr. I hope they come up here. I'm not showing the rest of the room. I'm waaayyy too embarrassed of my mess - far worse than any of the other pix.

I've really been in a frenzy lately with the book buying. I wanted to compare and contrast the last picture I posted with how it looks now.

Okay, so here's the second picture in the entire post:


Here's the same room now:


I've got to get a grip on my hoarding tendencies.

113 - Totally hilarious awesomeness! Shelves look much better with books on them than with picture frames and knick-knacks.

113 - Bigger TV, too!

I didn't think anything was wrong with the first picture when you first posted it, but now it looks so terribly empty!

Ok. Congratulations everybody. I am now thoroughly jealous. Thank you so very very much, this is just what I needed. Look at all those awesome rooms and shelves!!!!! *sniffs* It is gonna happen someday but for me it will be a while *sighs*...wow...My parents hate reading, and I am only allowed to buy one measly little bookshelf...the rest of my books are scattered all over the place, or *whispers* stuff in my bed drawers and night-table...but wow shelves all around the room!!!!

Ok, still sorting out what goes where so things may be moved arround a bit still, but i'v finally got all my books out of boxes & onto my shelves so wanted to share with ppl who would understand my sense of accomplishment :)

My main bookshelf:


My faves on the main bookshelf:


Bottom shelf


Top of the main bookshelf:


Shadowbox:


& the top of the shadowbox - i wanted to show the dragon globes lit:


The bottom shelf of my Shadowbox holds all the books that are part of an incomplete series (major pet hate lol, this shelf will empty out as quickly as i can afford to buy the missing books, lol):


Middle shelf of my shadowbox has my Dragonology books, some other dragon books & some of my dragon collection:


Sorry bout the odd sizes, I'm surprised i even managed to get all the link things to work, lol...

Seanie....I don't see any pictures.

Me, too, no pictures comin' thru

Bought a new (used) bookshelf yesterday, $12.00 and I didn't have to put it together -- love used furniture! For once, I actually have more shelf space than books. (Time to buy more books, obviously!) I should post pictures, but the only camera I have takes film -- and expensive Advantix film, too -- so don't get your hopes up.

:( & I was so proud for gettin the whole posting pictures thing right, lol...

I could see all the pics from home last night, now I can only see 2 of them - can any1 else see any of them???

I can see the first and the second-from-last. It looks like you did the code right, maybe it's some weird bandwidth issue with LJ picture hosting?

Edit: Once I posted, now I can see all but one. Weird.

#121 -- I couldn't see them earlier when I was on here, but now I can see them all.

Ok, i think i figured it out, I hosted them on my livejournal, which is automatically set to private so i had to make the pics public to be able to put them here - i think its all sorted now, lemme know if any of them cant be seen!

Coming through loud and clear Seanie. :) Even though purple is your favorite color, you still need a green dragon. Fun collection.

me, too, I see them. Fun. Makes me think I might like a dragon, too.

I found a web site full of pictures of from some of the world's most beautiful libraries. Obviously none of these are my shelves, but this seemed the most appropriate forum in which to post this link, and I simply HAD to let my fellow LibraryThingers (Things? Thingies?) in on this!

Green-With-Envy Pictures

Enjoy!

-Danny Birt

Holy Sha-MOley! The "most beautiful" library from Brazil looks like I would imagine Hogwart's Library would look.

What a wonderous scroll of beautiful rooms - except for the chained books, of course.

I was very proud, with no reason to be, of University of Washington's library where I actually sat and read when I was an undergraduate, back in the dark ages. I loved it then and I still can get shivers from walking into the big reading room or the rare books room, smaller but equally beautiful.

# 127 - Oh buchleser!!!

*happy sighs*

Those are the most fantabulous libraries! They're beyond anything I could have imagined!!!

Many thanks for posting that!!!!

Wow. All of them lovely. Though I must say, some of them seemed to have a lot of wasted space in terms of book storage. ;) The one I would want to hang out in would be: Queen's College Library Oxford.

MerryMary, may I suggest that the chained books were actually in "Unseen University Library" of Pratchett fame? The books had to be chained, not because they would be stolen, but because the magic in them was so great that if they flew around and interacted with each other, the results could be disastrous.

#131 - Re: the chained books - My thought precisely :-)
Great libraries all of them. But I felt a bit... you know, books on the upper shelves on the third balcony... I would not feel safe when standing on one of those ladders!!!

An interesting thing I noticed is the similarity between church architecture and the layouts of the libraries pictured...

#131 - Good call, Mrs. Lee! I wonder if we could photoshop an orangutan into that picture somehow?

Ook!

-Danny Birt

Some of the bookshelves at my partner's appartment


Part of my Dutch books at home (I have about four times as many English books, but unfortunately no pic of that)

#127
WHY OH WHY! *sobs broken-heartedly, runs and gets bucket for tears* Green with envy doesn't even 1/4 cover it. *sniffles* I mean LOOK at all those! I can't take it anymore! *runs to room, burrows into pillow and cries.*

This is before we moved in February, probably from sometime in the summer of '06. The three shelves on the left are in the same configuration at our new (two bedroom) apartment, and the little shelf on the right is now in our daughter's room. The short shelf between the two tall ones has all my paperbacks, and they're stacked two-deep!

this looks just like home, except I can't get far enough back from my shelves to get a good photo.

Love it.