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 live in an old flat with a non-working fireplace and I use the fire place for book storage. Like this.

Agree. Cannot imagine my life without.

Good grief. I have no bookshelves, i can’t think of a friend who has bookshelves yet weirdly i spend a lot of time discussing recommended books with them. I can’t bear the look of bookshelves cluttering up my house but somehow I’ve got over 1000 books on my kindle because i prefer kindles. However it must mean i don’t really read and i am not as special as most of the book hoarders on here.

My parents house looks pretty much like that, bookcases in every room. We had a Victorian flat with high ceilings and and hundreds of books but now live somewhere with lower ceilings and fewer recesses so now have a kindle and all the books go to the charity shop once we've reas them

My house doesn’t look like that, I don’t read 😬. DC’s read, eldest is a English lit student but we don’t have a house full of book shelves.

Mine is more blue and less red, also I've got a load of pictures but I wish to add that they are not all on one wall.

No I don't have bookshelves because I only read on my kindle these days. I don't have a house decorated like that, no.

Ha, we have wall to wall bookshelves in our library/study and small bookshelves in three other rooms. We both love reading. I do have a Kindle but I never use it, it's just not the same as a real book.

I am coveting that bookshelf door now.

I don't know anyone without a bookshelf afaik.

Why would this be the preserve of people over the age of 80, though?

Do you have a problem with houses that aren't bare wall to dreary bare wall grey?

Do people really have bookshelves
What a strange question.
I have many bookshelves because I have many, many books!

Not quite. What you’ve described is literally the commercial goal of a recipe website, to keep you looking at different recipes on their website to keep the ad £ and page clicks churning.

Why?

A library is just a collection of books. And if they like paperbacks, they keep them on bookshelves. A collection of bookshelves is a library, isn't it? Where else should they keep them?

The only photo I have of my book nook is when we set it up. I didn't have all my books out of storage at this point, the bookcases are now jammed full with books and I've actually got rid of some of the ones in it here to make space for others.

If every book owner kept books in order to 'look intellectual', you might have a point. Maybe the person whose shelves are jam-packed with paperback (oh the horror) thrillers (where are the smelling salts when you really need them...) just happens to enjoy thrillers and isn't worried about the opinions of occasional visitors? There are people out there who live their lives very happily just doing their own thing, oblivious to concerns about status or how they look.

There's a good deal of scattershot judgement in that post, and a distinct lack of 'imo', for instance in the phrase 'they make the room look awful'.

Obviously it’s each to their own but Inmot longer keep books - I have a small book case in a corridor upstairs and that’s it - everything else I donate / pass on. I used to keep
books and have them on shelves but had a kind of wake up call one day - what was the point - books should be read and enjoyed not festering on shelves showing people that yes I read.

So I got rid of hundreds of them and it’s massively freeing.

This would be bad for me though as I have a real issue with focus and concentration so nobody would be getting tea before 9pm 🙈

Maybe it’s a ‘birds of a feather’ thing, Op? I’m a bookworm so tend to be friends with other bookworms. Equally my mum’s best friend loved gardening, and most of their friendship circle did too, as they had that shared interest.
Being a bookworm doesn’t mean being clever, or educated, or ‘well read’ btw. I unashamedly love reading things that literary types consider trash, not that I agree with them, and love meeting other people who do, too!

Nope - I have a kindle.

I used to use recipe books all the time but the past few years it’s been the internet 99% of the time.

I actually love TikTok for cooking and recipe videos, and you definitely see and discover new things even if you go looking for one specific dish.

We only have one bookcase because I like to donate most of them. I tried a Kindle but it's not the same especially if I fall asleep when I read in bed.
I would love a house big enough for walls of books.

We have a few big bookcases with quite a lot of books, but my house looks otherwise nothing like your pictures, as it's pretty minimalist. We read a lot, but mostly on Kindles now, so we rarely buy new actual books and we gave a load to charity shops a few years back, but it wouldn't feel like home for me without any books on shelves. I can't think of anyone I know well who doesn't have bookshelves.

Don't forget @Damaged27, books are a value and virtue indicator. If you like tv or video games, you're at one end of the scale; if you like books you're at the other.

According to a lot of threads of this nature it's seemingly impossible to have a happy balance and if you choose to spend your leisure time on the xbox you're an unbearable chav - god forbid if you have a husband that likes to game! Divorce, immediately!

(Only half joking, I love to read but it pisses me off how there is a clear hierarchy on what leisure activities are considered good or bad on this site. I like gaming and reading and do both regularly!)

We are having quite a lot done to our house, a process that has been going on for about 5 months now.

Our builders said they had never worked in a house with so many books, and we are having even more bookshelves made.

I used to have a job that took me into all sorts of peoples' houses. I can confirm that there are lots of homes where there isn't a book to be seen. If they have shelves at all, they contain knick-knacks and photos. My house looks a bit like the second one in the photos, but not as expensively put together. I do have a wall of books in one room.

I have a kindle but also like real books and I read them more than once so would never give them away once read.
Also don't you have reference books? An atlas? Art books? Books with sentimental value?
I love my kindle but you can't get everything on a kindle and some things are much easier to read in a book.