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?

We've got a vintage modular bookcase with glass doors. No dust on those books! Plus quite a few open shelves but the books are a snug fit so don't get too bad.

Books are decoration and entertainment. Multifunctional if you like . Also, very restful. I don't even need to read one to feel calmer, just be near them. I do admit that's weird though.

My whole life has been spent reading and I own so many books I don’t really want to face it, but also cannot bear being surrounded by bookshelves (don’t mind in kids rooms). Whole walls of them in bedrooms or public rooms fill me with disquiet. I dream of a library and a set of those steps on wheels 🥲

You would all hate it lots of grey. white gloss kitchen, minimalistic. Vertical blinds.

Our house does look a little like those, in that we have 3 and a half floor to ceiling bookcases. We have books in the study (business books, books we've written or co-authored, poetry books, foreign language books).

We like books though, and don't think of them as clutter, but as decoration and as memory. You never know when you'll want to reread a book and it's pretty hard to browse through a Kindle book. Graphic novels and poetry don't translate very well to e-books, nor books with many illustrations or maps, and we have a lot of those. Academic texts too are easier in hard copy so you can annotate them physically, though I know you can highlight on Kindle.

I also read on Kindle and listen to audiobooks, so we've acquired far fewer books in the last 15 years or so, and have donated lots of books we'll never read again.

I don't mind things being mismatched and I prefer having stuff I want around me to the idea of keeping things clean. I mean, nothing is actively dirty, but books do get a bit dusty and need dusting from time to time.

There are bookshelves in my dc rooms. I stre all my old books in the attic (meant to take them to charity). I only read on kindle now. I have the odd library book.

This is just what my house looks like (well, the book shelves...my sofa and rug etc., are less fussy).
I could NEVER have enough book shelves. A house without books isn't a home to me.

No. I read 2 books a month, on my Kindle.

I have books in bookshelves in my studio of the large coffee table variety mostly. Nobody sees those but me.

I have 2 big Billy's in my study with books, photo albums and Doctor Who models on them, plus two sideboards and an Ikea dresser with more books and work stuff! I donate books I don't want to read again but keep my favourites - I have many favourites!

I don't think it's weird, or maybe I'm weird too! Think how lovely it is to be in a bookshop surrounded by books, it is calming and restful yet bursting with potential to enter new worlds and emotions through the books there.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or vomit at the smuggery on this thread.

I read loads, always have but I pass my books on to charity shops once I'm done so no need for book shelves.

It was a very small minority on the other thread havering on about books. Fuck knows why, 😂So assume it’s a very small minority in real life who live like that.

Haha - do people seriously know nobody with bookshelves (or presumably books)?

That's a rhetorical question - it's glaringly obvious reading through many threads here that there are people who never read.

I have a white couch and bookshelves - and ¡gasp! books.

The OP would hate my house, which is a small version of the above, with added curios, snake skeleton in a case anyone? , and I would hate hers for being a bit Mrs Hinch. Horses for courses. We're all different.

Keeping books on shelves doesn't show anything about you except that you've " got books ." No one else can tell if you've read them.

🤷‍♀️

I'm prepared to admit my DD's are probably not the norm, but they are voracious readers and both have bookshelves here and in their flats. Vintage books are a big thing in their groups, as are the new editions of classics in clothbound covers. Neither has a kindle, nor reads in their phone.

Yes we have bookshelves.

You think it's smug to like books and have bookshelves??
Dear god, talk about race to the bottom.

You sound like my neighbours who think people who have books on bookshelves are "up 'emsells".

I keep telling friends from out of my area that everyone here expects grey white and the odd silver diamanté "live laugh love" sign and they don't believe me, yet here is OP the very case in point!

@TheVeryThing as I was saying ...!!

Up north. Poor area people don't have studys and libraries in their homes or certainly no one I know. My kids books are just in drawers, piled on a desk, sometimes the floor at somepoint they've probably been on shelves

I don't know anyone without a bookshelf of some kind. I also don't know anyone posh enough to have a house like the ones pictured in the op.

Surely, as is often the case with Mumsnet, most people fall somewhere in the middle of the 2 extremes of no books and dedicated library??

Minimalist gives off a 'soul-less' vibe.

I'd love proper bookshelves like that! Most of our physical books are boxed up in the loft as we just don't have the room currently to have them all out. Once DD doesn't need a playroom anymore (we've sacrificed our dining room for that) we'll probably bring some of them down, DH is quite handy so could knock some shelves together to go in the alcove (currently home to a toy box and Gabbys doll house).

DH is a big reader and keeps an extensive library of ebooks on his laptop, DD has a kindle and i have the kindle app on my iPad. Not quite the same as a physical book but it'll do!

Of course then there's the DVD's...

My DDs are 26 and 31 and have many books. DD1 in particular has a house which looks a lot like the one you showed. Lots of books and plants and colour. Most people i know have loads of books. We have loads too.