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 am currently sitting in my library - many thousands of books - and we have bookcases elsewhere in the house...

it isn't hoarding though - books are frequently re-read (I get rid of badly written books), but a high percentage of them are first editions going up in value...

My house is a bit more like Ikea, but messier.

People keep physical books for a number of reasons.

Firstly, they might be of sentimental value. I have the book that my dad won at Sunday school for regular attendance when he was 6. It's inscribed to him. I have a few family books like that, including a Second World War guide to having a baby that my grandma kept.

Secondly, they might be useful books. I have a load of cookbooks, and several books on how to do DIY. YouTube is helpful for this these days but I do love a good cookbook.

Thirdly,I was a teacher for a long time. I own quite a few maths textbooks going back through the years, and also I collect them from different countries. It means that when I come to teach a topic again, I can look at all the ways it has been taught in the past and in different places. That helps me be better at my job.

My ExH is a computer programmer. He keeps quite a few books around - so that he can look stuff up if he has forgotten it. He's had to learn quite a few new computer languages since he started working nearly 30 years ago and while YouTube videos etc are useful books are good as well because you can look up the specific but you want in the contents.

I have floor to ceiling book shelves but they are all in my bedroom. I read in bed and in the bath.
I do think houses without them look a bit un homely though so I might have to work out where to fit them downstairs.

My place is the Ikea version of those pictures: Billy bookshelves + Strandmon chair

I mainly read on kindle, but I do have bookshelves - but we have dozens more children's books than adult books.

I don't. I donated all my books when I got a kindle.

Same here! Love reading but not a fan of cluttered walls in my home or of books sitting around untouched for years (or decades). But that's a personal preference. I appreciate that many people love to keep and display books.

This looks like very American styling to me. Anyone with books would naturally have the books on something!!! Or would you pile them up in a heap or keep in a box?!

The children had bookshelves in their rooms but we never had them in living rooms because we donate books after they have been read .
Certainly hasn’t effected their academic achievements which was mentioned earlier in thread.

I'm in my 40s and loathe e-readers. It's just not the same and a proper book never runs out of battery when your flight is delayed.

I find houses without books unnerving.

Me too. I don't have a house, but my five Billy bookcases have lived in all the rentals with me. I love my books, and I love having them to hand. I can't imagine not having bookshelves. Many of my friends don't have any - not in their living rooms, at least.

My house doesn't look like that, no.

I do however have a bookshelf wall on one side of my mantelpiece. The other side is family pictures.

The children's bookcase is in their bedroom, it's probably about half the size of mine.

And yes, my house does look a bit like the picture on the right.

For me, books are for reading - not to act as decor or show off my reading habits to visitors.

I read about 70-100 books a year, so I couldn't possibly keep hard copies of them all unless I moved to a castle. I probably read about 75% of my books on a Kindle and about 25% are paperbacks, which I box up and donate as soon I've read them.

I love reading - my degree's in English Literature and I have a book reviews blog, so clearly reading is incredibly important to me. But for me, the important thing about a book is the words in it, not what it looks like in my house.

In our old house, we had bookshelves covering two full walls of our living room and in one room upstairs. Then we both got Kindles. We've since either sold or donated several thousand books.

Now, we have one wall of shelves which are in the spare room I use as and office, but they're for reference books, coffee table books, special editions, art books, niche or sentimental books no longer in print etc - the kind of thing you can't read on a Kindle, basically.

I don’t get palpitations at a lack of bookcases in someone’s home because ebooks but when people say I’m not a reader I just stare blankly.

Yes we have bookshelves.
No our house doesn't look like that.

Oh yes, the cookbooks! I collect vintage cookbooks and have shelves in the kitchen devoted to them. I have my mother's old ones, my MIL's, my grandmothers' and my great-grandmothers' cookbooks, plus the ones I've picked up secondhand or that people have given me over the years. I'd never get them on Kindle, it wouldn't be the same.

Glass doors on the shelves are a must though.

I am currently sitting in my library - many thousands of books - and we have bookcases elsewhere in the house...

This is my dream! 😀

I have bookshelves but also lots of piles of books (which is why you won't catch me posting photos...)

How amazing to have such a family history of cookbooks!

I have books on shelves fitted in the alcove by the fireplace, on freestanding shelf units by the sofa and in the bedrooms, books on the coffee table, the kitchen table and the bedroom floor, because the shelves are full (of books). I’d love more shelves.

Oh and a kitchen wall cupboard crammed with cookery books, plus a stack on the microwave!

Yeah I've got way too many books. About 80% are books to look at (art books, cookery books, random stuff like 'the greatest album covers ever' type books), 10% are books people have gifted me that I can't be arsed to read but feel obliged to keep, and 10% are the ones I actually read and reread over and over again.

Hey OP do you have kids? As pp mentioned, kids growing up in houses with books in do markedly 'better' than those without.

There had to be one...