Outfittin’ Your Book Nook

I think all people who love books harbor secret dreams of living in a book-lined world, of carefully and artfully displaying those volumes they cherish as much as family albums.

Growing up, Meg and I loved to “play” library.  The day my mother bought us a little date stamp during an Office Depot trip, we were in the big time. 

The urge to create a special home for the books in my house has never left me.  When we got married, Sean and I spent a portion of our wedding money on an elaborate shelving system from now-defunct Storehouse Furniture, complete with a rolling ladder for my vertically challenged self. 

Still, I’ve never quit shopping for cool book nooks, and I thought I’d celebrate this season of getting unpacked and organized by providing a gallery of my favorites.  If you have any, feel free to share!

1.  The Classic Rolling Library Ladder System from Rockler Woodworking.  Now, this looks like a pricey home installation, it’s really just the ladder part.  If you have a wall of bookshelves already, Rockler will put together a ladder and custom rolling track you can install yourself.  (It screws into the walls surrounding your shelves.)  It’s not the cheapest thing out there (the ladder and track system starts at $500), but really, can you put a price on having the real library ladder in your house.  I think this contraption could make a stack of milk crates look positively stately.

2.  The Magical Conceal Shelf.  They’re a bit modern for my decor, but I have to admit, these are really cool.  They give the illusion that your stacks of books are just floating, completely unsupported, on your walls.  Great if you’re into books as art. 

3.  The Cave.  Designed and built to order by Japanese designer Sakurah Adachi, the New York Times noted that “[s]itting in this upholstered niche is supposed to make a reader feel secluded — akin to being lost among a college library’s dusty stacks — but still remain visible to passers-by.” Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a website online that still sells this, but the more industrious among you could probably come up with a way to rig your own similiar chair-and-case-in-one. Pretty nifty idea, especially if you’re short on space.

4. Cat Greene Rolling Shelves. Now this is brilliant. Who doesn’t own those few random, annoying tall books that won’t fit on traditional shelves and wind up collecting dust in Coffee Table Land? These shelves roll back and forth to accomodate tall items. Even with nothing sitting on them, these shelves double as functional art A bonus: Greene is green, and practices sustainable construction.

5. Put your books in an underused space. (Cost = free to $$$$). Kimbooktu.com, a fantastic blog devoted to the worship of fun reading gadgets, called my attention to this home in London where the owners turned their staircase into a library. Somewhere else, a homeowner used the space between ceiling beams to categorize and store volumes.

Just a few ideas for those of us who still harbor fantasies of stowing away among the stacks. Feel free to share yours!

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