1000+ books - how do you do a restful sitting room?

[Dontsvetmuchforafatgirl]

Can anyone help? I would love a restful, slightly floral sitting room but at the same time I cannot bear to part with my books. We will move soon.

We currently have four full size wall to floor Ikea Billy units and are already overflowing , so will probably need 5 in future.

At the moment we have the tv against different wall and sofa facing tv. So books are just back drop. But we are considering 3 different options for new room . Which one would be most restful? I love my books and want them in my face and able to touch them at any time but at the same time staring at shelf after shelf can give me a slight headache.

what would work best?

a) a built in tv unit into a wall of books
b) a full wall of books and sofa with its back to it and furniture facing tv as focal point
c) breaking the bookcases up around the room

What do people actually get for selling second hand books? I have wowndered whether I should set up an EBay account, but is it just pennies?

Norks your books are gorgeous!
I second the kindle plan :)

second hand books sell for about 1p with £2.75 postage on amazon

yy kindle is the way to go
free up your walls

I did the colour co-ordinated look a while ago as well. Didn't last long before it got messy though. Yours looks fab norks

Wow Norks! That looks fantastic . I colourbetise my clothes, but only do that as I used to have open hanging space. Now I have doors on the wardrobe but cant get out of the habit.

Get rid of all but thosenyoubhave opened in the last 5 years.

Keep them all out of your sitting room.

If they have to be on view, organise them by colours. Makes them look loads tidier

We have three cheepo bookcases from Argos in our spare room which are almost floor to ceiling. These hold all of our books and we do regular culls to charity so that we can buy more books. If I had a separate dining room I would ideally like them in there.

I grew up in a house with books in the living room and think it looks cluttered, so wanted ours out of the way. Plus they collect dust so if you are a slattern like me you can close the spare room door and only dust when you have guests.

We do have a small dresser in the living room with cookery books on but that's it.

took bloody AGES to do and we have moved house twice in the last two years. the books go in boxes marked 'blue/aqua books', 'taupe and biscuit books'

we are the fartiest of arties

I someone has not suggested it already, can I suggest you get a kindle?

Why can a sitting room not be restful AND full of books? I catalogued my books last year (geek) and have about 2,500 (and I didn't include my husband's books), and I really find nothing so peaceful as a room full of books. My parents say that 'books make the best wallpaper' and I agree.
I think floor-to-ceiling shelves look great. But then, every room in our house has books in (not surprisingly!)

Hmmm I think the whole books around tv or behind the sofa thing will be dependent on how much tv you watch and what the actual focus of your sitting room is. I'm not a huge tv watcher so try to keep the area around the patio doors to the garden clear for relaxation and mning on my laptop. If you like to chill in front of the box though you may find it better to put them behind the sofa.

Books anywhere in the sitting room wouldn't be my idea of restful (and I have loads of them because I'm too poor to move to a kindle) but we are all different and isn't that a wonderful thing

If you did want to minimise their impact had you considered keeping the shelving low level but extending all the way around the room to compensate (obviously would need a fairly large room) a bit like this and again here. Or you could do what I'm planning to do with ours in our study and paint the back of the units in a bold colour to divert attention away from the visual overload of a thousand books. a bit like the second picture down on this page if you ignore the toys

I'd go for a) or c) out of the OP's list.

We used to have a bookcase behind the sofa, but it was very awkward getting books out of the bottom of the bookcase because the sofa just got in the way.

In our sitting room, we've got half the wall full of books, then TV in the corner in the other half of the room. Plus books in all other rooms except the bathroom....

Books are beautiful in and of themselves so just need paint on the non-book walls. I am pining for my books which are all in storage until we buy a house (9 months and waiting ...). Book shelf space is up there on the list of requirements in any new house. I do give away the ones I don't like but otherwise hoard them all - I don't necessarily re-read them (or at least not often) but every single one has a memory associated and their presence is a lovely treasure trove of life stuff.

I love lots of books, and don't think you should even think about doing a cull. However, have you ever thought of subdividing them? For instance, all the childrens' books are in their room, all the fiction is on the landing, and the sitting room houses poetry,plays, philosophy, art and all the reference books (many of which are nice coffee table type things.) Whatever you do though, please have book cases built, they look SO much nicer than Billy. You can make them really pretty - for instance, painting the inside a different colour - a dove grey, or a rose pink, or something.

We have built in shelves covering the entire wall, full of books. There is one deeper shelf housing the (smallish) TV. It does look cluttered, but we don't care .

We also have an entire wall of books in the study/office (my dp works from home).

And we have shelves covering the hallway room outside the dd's rooms, full of their books.

We do have a lot of books . And yes, I also have a kindle.

I clipped a pic out of the Guardian weekend mag once which showed a wall with a door in the middle of it which had shelves both sides & across the top up to the ceiling - it looked wonderful

Unfortunately all our doors are in corners

This is honestly one of my favourite topics on Mumsnet. I love the friction over the fiction .

Thousands of books all over the place - you either love them or you can live perfectly happily without them - but I do so very much enjoy guffawing at the out and out snobbery that some mumsnetters people give out to those who prefer not to litter their living space with 20 year old paperback copies of The Secret History and the like. Amuses me no end.

I might suggest Dewey-Dessimalle on Baby Names.

Have you seen the glass doors you can get for Billy bookcases ? They make them look MUCH classic imo.

What are all these books that everyone is so keen to hang on to? Go to your bookcase and read out the first 10 of the 3rd shelf down so we can help judge you

Ok, Edith:

Derek Walcott, Omeros
Jonathan Coe: Like a Fiery Elephant
Colette: Looking Backwards
Sontag: Duet for Cannibals
Toni Morrison: Beloved
Gertrude Stein: Ida
Hans Falluda: Alone in Berlin
Jonathan Freedland: Jacob's Gift
English-Yiddish Dictionary
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Winifred Holtby: South Riding

I'll say it for you: terminally middle aged and middle class I do actually cull them regularly, but they seem to mate and reproduce. In our defence, dp is a writer and reviewer, so we do get sent a lot...

Oh, impressive list especially the English-Yiddish dictionary and Charlie & the Chocolate Factory

We have a library (live in Australia, so bigger houses). It has two full walls of books facing each other and a sofa on wall 3 facing arm chairs on the other side, which is open to the hall. It's actually very peaceful, although not at all floral, but that's partly because there is no TV or other family clutter and I think because it's symmetrical. The book cases are dark brown Expedit, and there are 30 "boxes" on each wall.

The books must be kept tidy though. Mine aren't colour coded but are in sections (much to my husband's amusement) and I'm careful not to over-fill. (We now have Kindles so rarely buy books.)

If you want the books to blend in a bit, you could put doors on the bottom halves of the book cases and paint the walls a similar colour. And maybe glass doors on the top half?

I adore books. I fantasise about a library at the top of a house, with a glass roof. Sitting there with the rain pouring down and a crackling fire
I love that people wander in my home and pick up books and treasures