Is this what 99% of mumsnetters homes look like

[Damaged27]

After all these interior design threads this is what I'm imagining everyone on mumsnets homes look like. Just curious if I'm way off because iv never been in a home like this. Maybe if the person is in their 80s. Do people really have bookshelves?

I have a library! Well, a converted loo but it is just for books now the pedestal and basin have been removed. I also have the striped rug pictured on the second picture. The rug is in a different (upstairs) room though, so not sure I qualify as a real mumsnetter.

I’m a reader. But I pretty much only read on kindle. I have a resolute shelf of novels I want to read. And have a copy of that remain unread. I’ve even resorted to buying a few for kindle!!

i’ve been slowly downgrading my physical books as I live in a small place. I only really have reference books and art/design books in hard copy now. They don’t work well on kindle IME. The judginess I hear on here about not having physical books grates slightly. Not all of us have the luxury of space!!

I also use my local library a lot for cook books and other stuff. Let’s me try before I buy. Again as my cook book collection is constrained by space. I have to really like it to chose to store it on an ongoing basis.

I said out of print/academic not "out of print academic books. ". Maybe if you read more you would have noticed that key difference.

Why are you "sad for me" 😂

The first picture looks a bit cluttered and dark for reading and the chairs uncomfortable. The second is much nicer.

You even have the mumsnet plant everyone was talking about

Our study has wall to wall bookcases. None in our sitting room apart from some poncey ones piled on a footstool.

I have books I've re read 30 plus times. It's not hoarding, it would just be stupid to keep re buying them and passing them on

I do have a fair amount on kindle as well, but I'm not going to rebuy all my old favorites in kindle form even they are even available

Plus we get 4 day power cuts around here, physical books come in handy when your batteries in tech are rapidly running down

My house doesn’t look like that but this is one of many bookcases we have. There are bookcases in 5 rooms plus various piles in my bedroom and in a bathroom.

Ok, will need to name change after this as it will massively out me, but my living room.

Pic is taken from the sofa. There is a tv in there - it's on top of another bookcase that you can't see.

I don't have books to seem intellectual I am intellectual. Yes I have read nearly all of them. Some of them are old favourites and I reread them frequently. I read love in the time of cholera at least every summer.

Quite a few are academic books that I have used in my research and frankly it's a pain going to the library to get books out especially when I use them a lot so I have my own copies. An example of that kind of book might be a book I have on maths research from the 1970s showing all the ways students get maths problems wrong.

I read pretty fast (happy to see from this thread there are other people who read faster than me, never met one in real life) and if it's a normal fiction book eg Agatha Christie could easily read 2 a day.

When I went up to secondary school in the 1980s they asked us to list all the books we read in year 6. I'd read over a thousand, obviously mostly kids books, in the year.

I still read a lot but I'm a lot slower with academic books as they take longer to process.

Another one who has books here!

No, my house doesn't look like that - but I do have loads and loads of books, many of which are on bookshelves in our spare bedroom/cum office. We also both read books on Kindle. But Kindles are no good for many non-fiction books like Art books or similar, which have lots of images etc in them. Others are old (very old) books which are lovely to have with lovely bindings etc. Others are just very favourite reads which I will read more than once. Also have a few in the living room also on shelves, but not bespoke book shelves

In our old house, the bookshelves were in the living room though, as it was a big space, so the bookshelves were best placed there.

Books do furnish a room.

Forgot picture!

I'm and English teacher and writer.
My dh is a publisher.
We have about 2000 books in the house.
Is this a real question?

I got rid of all my books a few years ago when I realised I’d almost exclusively been reading my Kindle for yonks. I wasn’t really going to reread the books so they were just gathering dust and taking up space when someone else could be getting the benefit from them. My kids are older and we have a Kindle Unlimited subscription used by the family.

We have some bookcases.

Books related to our careers (that we might need to refer to in the course of our work) are kept in our respective home offices. General fiction books are kept our/the kids bedrooms, but we do tend to pass on all but the absolute favourites, so we have a shelf each, roughly, which we regularly declutter and then add new books to. Recipe books are kept in the utility room (but being replaced by online recipes tbh). Reference books are kept on the top floor landing on some built in shelving.

Visitors to our house wouldn't really see our books, since they wouldn't typically go into the rooms/areas they're stored in. I don't feel the need to "display" books as some kind of signifier. We are who we are.

Yup, that's my house. I am 71 though.

I 1000% agree. So much snobbery on here.

I also have a bookshelf but because I need somewhere to put books!! Not because I want people to walk in and wonder at how smart I must be.

We have bookshelves which are originally from the British Library and have been built into our flat, floor to ceiling, over 3m high in the sitting room. They are full of our books - novel, non-fiction, art books - and a bit of champagne. Love the bookshelves, and not only have we read the large majority of the books, but they add colour and personality.

Grew up in a fairly badly off household in a pretty deprived part of "The North" and we had bookshelves in almost every room. Both parents loved reading. I'm now 34, have 8 IKEA Billys of my own (and a kindle) but my house looks nothing like that. Nor does it look like that of an 80 year old.

Bookshelves, yes! Like the pictures, no.

I need more shelves and more books. Have loads on my kindle too.
Plus two bookcases of wonderful cookbooks.

Reading is a wonderful journey, and I have been doing since I was 3 so over 50 years.

I have too many books, displayed in a similar fashion to the picture. They make the place look awful. The bookcases are just under a foot deep, so they make the room a lot smaller. They don't make me look intellectual at all. In fact is it a form of hoarding? Reading the latest Ann Cleeves and leaving it on the bookcase forevermore is a bit sad, tragic, even. Most people would just bung them in the charity shop.

I don't have a library so they are just in the living room. I know someone who has an actual library in his house, jam packed with paperback thrillers. Everybody finds it ridiculous.

Also don't think bookshelves are some marker of having loads of money – reading is a cheap hobby!

We have a bookecase in the livingroom and the children’s rooms have their current books in.

Couldn’t imagine having no books or expecting them to be hidden away.

Though thinking About it, mil doesn’t seem to have any books, maybe they are hidden away yet she sees her self as quite to do. No pictures anywhere but the mantle either.

My mum has overflowing multiple
bookcases and infact shipped over around 50 Enid books to mine the other month.

My home does not look like this but has lots of books, plants and colour.

Maybe somewhere between Apartment Therapy and an art student house share