Kit Davey, Interior Designer
18 Years in business - Over 2,600 homes transformed!
Tips From Kit - July 2001
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Arranging Your Bookcases
By Kit Davey
Crash! Boom! Splat!
Did your thesaurus land on your head the last time you tried to extricate a tome from your bookshelves? Do you have so many books jammed into your bookcases you couldn't wedge in another with a shoehorn?
Relax! Follow this easy, three step process and you'll achieve a designer-like bookcase display in no time.
1. Weeding Out
For book lovers, this first step is the most painful. If your bookcase is full, you may need to let a third of your books go to achieve an orderly and pleasing arrangement on your shelves. Remove each volume and decide if it will stay or go. Set up boxes marked "For a friend", "Library Book Sale" "Garage Sale", etc., to facilitate the sorting process. As you sort, ask yourself (or your client) if you have touched the book in the past year. If not, place it in one of your boxes. Banish any spiral bound, plastic binders or loose papers to a closet in a den or office.
If the thought of letting go of a single volume is unacceptable, you'll need to scrounge up or buy a new bookcase to house the leftover books generated by this process (plus the volumes you're sure to accumulate in the future).
2. Vary Stacking
Once you've weeded out the chaff, you're ready to replace your choicest books on the shelves. Look at the shelves as a whole---ultimately you'll want a balanced arrangement. To achieve the overall effect you must vary your stacking technique and leave "air holes" between groupings of books. Select three to four of the following methods and repeat them, rather than using a completely different one on each shelf:
- Fill a complete row with books
- Fill the shelf two-thirds across, leaving an "air hole" to the right or left
- Place a graduated stack (6 to 10 books) in the center, or off-center, with spaces to either side
- Fill the shelf one-third across and use a stack of books (resting on their back covers) as a bookend
- Fill the right third and the left third with books, leaving an opening in the middle of the shelf
- Leave one shelf vacant to display a collection.
There are a multitude of variations to these suggested arrangements---experiment until you've created an overall look that satisfies you.
Next, line up the spines of the books; this may mean pulling a few smaller books away from the back of the shelf, but will give your books a more orderly and less-cluttered appearance. If you do not want to place any knick-knacks on the shelves, keep the spaces between groups of books fairly narrow. If you plan on housing some of your treasures here, make sure you allow for enough space to display them.
3. Accessorizing
Now it's time to place appropriate accessories in the spaces you have created. Look at the room's style and its color scheme. With this in mind, go on a treasure hunt through the house looking for objects to display: vases, small pictures, colorful antique bottles, tea cups, plants, figurines, pottery, baskets, a live plant, miniature boxes, etc. Begin placing objects in the "air holes":
- Display only objects which you care about or which make you feel good to look at.
- Keep your collections together.
- Group like-objects in odd-numbered configurations.
- A single picture or plate works well, hung or leaning on the back of the bookcases.
- Avoid the tendency to over-accessorize the space---displaying fewer truly beautiful objects has more impact than a dozen meaningless trinkets.
(c) 2001
Kit Davey is a Redwood City-based interior designer specializing in redecorating using what you already have. You can reach her by calling (650)367-7370 or by writing her at KitDavey@aol.com. Visit her website at www.AFreshLook.net.
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