Shelves on either side of fireplaces?

[Jaffacakesallround]

Views?
We have a central chimney breast in a modern-ish house ( 80s) but it has a cottage-y feel to it. I love bookshelves either side of fireplaces in older houses but am not sure.

Wondering- will they look cluttered or messy?

Would it look odd to have them just on one side and not the side above the TV which stands on an old antique trunk?

How many shelves looks 'right'? We have enough books double-parked on other book cases to fill about 3 shelves 4 feet wide.

The room is about 19ft-12ft overall.

If you take a photo of it and the use a doodle app to draw in shelves that will give you an idea of what would suit !
Jali make things to order and could be useful so you could DIY rather than getting a handy person in ?!
Sometimes having cupboard at the bottom and shelving at the top allows tv to go in the cupboard ( if there's enough clearance to allow doors to fully open ) this can give you a symmetrical look, and great storage too !

Search alcove shelves on Pinterest - lots of inspiration there!

I think asymmetry is more pleasing when it comes to shelves.

From what you say of the "feel" of the room, I don't see why you shouldn't do open bookshelves. The main thing is to be disciplined about what you put on them, so it helps to: a) have no more shelf than you can fill with books; b) don't make the shelves much deeper than the books that they will house or you'll leave all kinds of crap on the edge; c) have adequate storage for other stuff - cupboards at the bottom, open shelves above would certainly help with that. It's fair enough to have one, or maybe two beautiful things on the whole stretch of shelving, but if you display more than that I think it ruins the look.

Number and spacing of shelves should be tailored to your book collection. If it's mostly paperbacks, then you can really pack them in, with one or two taller shelves for kids' books/recipe books/hardbacks/coffee table books. I quite like asymmetry too, but it has to look intentional. Most shelves level with one or two offset looks like a miscalculation!

we had them built in, an absolute godsend for storage and they look really good too. We have cupboards below and shelves above. Left a space for the telly that was too big for the tv we had at the time but our carpenter advised us to make it tall enough for the biggest tv that would fit in there and he was right .