Can a bookcase go on top of a chest of drawers?

[Globules]

We're having a change around and needing to get rid of a floor to ceiling bookcase.

DS suggested getting a small bookcase and placing it on top of his chest of drawers.

It'll look a little odd, but not much. It's certainly a practical solution for storing several of the books. I can affix the bookcase to the wall so it doesn't fall.

What are your thoughts on this? I can see it working. But as I've never seen it in anyone's homes, I'm curious why no one else has done this before. Am i missing something?

Can you put photos of both into ChatGPT and ask it to combine. See what it looks like. Personally I’d think it a bit odd. I have lots of books…. I’d be worried about stability too (even if you can fix it).

A dresser is basically this isn’t it so I don’t see why it would look odd if the two pieces match

The main reasons are stability, accessibility and not making the piece of furniture look too imposing, I think.

Obviously screwed to the wall is essential - is the floor absolutely level! Is the chest of drawers?

Chests of drawers are much deeper than bookshelves. How will you reach the books? Can you reach the upper shelves?

Imposing - with the height of two pieces of furniture plus all the books it could easily loom over the rest of the space, if you see what I mean.

Look on Pinterest for ideas. Personally I would just put shelves up above the drawers.

I’ve done this in the past. The two pieces of furniture were similiar colour woods so it looked absolutely fine. I didn’t even attach to the wall as both the bookcase and drawers were solid pieces of furniture and I wouldn’t have attached the bookcase if it was on the floor. It was fine for 20+ years until I moved and downsized

Yes I though this was normal like a dresser but i suppose that would be usually to have cupboards not drawers

they would need attaching together and then to the wall though. How old is DS. Anything like teen me he would have balanced precariously and probably would have be successful but not sensible!

I’ve done that in my bedroom with a low chest of drawers & a small, shallow bookcase & it works fine. I screwed the bookcase to the wall but mainly because my cat likes to jump on it.

Good to hear from people who've done this already and it's been successful.

Thank you too for all the tips of things to look into and sure up before going ahead

I'll investigate further.

All my bookcases are in my bedroom & every time I run out of shelf space I buy another one from the local charity shop, so as far as I’m concerned matching has never come into it - I like the way the mix looks.

Couldn’t you just put shelves up the walls?

We did this. It works.

We did it because I found a bookcase I liked at the tip shop (real wood).

We've done this. Two separate pieces of furniture, same wood (mahogany), both antique-ish. It works fine. Sometimes I think a mirror would be better above the drawers, but we needed the bookshelf space.

DD has an ikea billy on top of malm drawers. Both fixed to wall. It works but is not beautiful even though the colour and style match. It’s a decent solution for now using items we already had.