Alcove shelving - tallest books at top?

[brokenshoes]

We are about to put some shelving in an alcove, from the ceiling to about halfway down. There is already a cupboard in the alcove that we wish to keep.

We now need to decide the shelf heights/positions.

I would like to put the tallest books at the top. My main reason for this is that these are books that we are least likely to want to get down, whereas most of the others I would like to be more easily accessible.

However, DH thinks that the tallest books at the top will be too "overbearing" in the room and might look too top-heavy.

What is your shelving like?

Tallest books at the bottom. I think this is standard as with a bookcase you don't want it to be too heavy and fall over.

We put photo albums and things on our top shelf, boxes of maps and things.

Yes - tallest at the bottom. Looks more balanced and also easier to get out as they tend to be the heaviest too.

We have an office where we put the taller books at the top precisely for the same reason, they are the ones we use the least. It doesn't look too heavy at all but then the top shelves are not full - so we have 5 or 6 tall books and then a vase or a photograph next to them or just leave open space. It looks nice, the lower shelves are much fuller so they balance out the proportion of having the bigger books at the top.

However this isn't in an alcove - it's a room full of books!

I see I might need to concede defeat here! We have enough tall books to fill an entire shelf or two, so it looks like lowest two shelves being for the tallest books and the two higher shelves for the 'normal' sized ones.

Tallest at the bottom. I think it's trick of the eye/perspective thing as well - tall books at the top looks unbalanced.

Tallest books at the bottom looks best. Also, I don't fill the whole shelf, but leave a gap at one side for an ornament/ vase/ clock etc. Otherwise it can look too sold and overbearing.

solid