My Mini Library Bookcase Decorating

I've been working on reading a different book every month this year. It's part of my bigger new years resolution to focus on self-care. Self-care for me includes doing things that bring me joy. Reading hasn’t been a priority for me in a long time because it wasn't an immediate necessity. Now I realize that taking the time for things I enjoy is a priority because when I feel better, I can do better. So I started by making this corner of my living room into a mini reading library. Now that I've used the bookcase for a while now, I wanted to share how it is I organize and display my books and how I've decorated the whole mini-library space.

I purchased the bookcases and recliner with a gift card provided to me by Wayfair as compensation for a campaign on I worked on with them.

My living room is small. My whole house is small. It's not a tiny home by a long shot but it's small. So I try to keep the larger and especially taller elements of the room lighter and brighter to help open it up. I chose to go with a tall bookcase so that I could fit more on it and chose to go with a white bookcase so it could visually disappear into the wall.

I'm a homebody so most of the things I enjoy and need space for have to happen in small multifunctioning spaces. I chose to dedicate a corner of my living room as my reading corner because it's the best spot in my home for it. It keeps me central to where the rest of my family is hanging out. And it means the recliner can change functions to extra seating when we have guests or want to stretch out for movie night. It flows well with the rest of the home.

Plants

Especially in spaces that are very bright, light, and mostly white, I like to use a lot of plants in the design because they bring literal life and vibrancy to the space. I am a plant lover and already keep quite a few around and need places to put them anyways but I really love the way they fill in empty space. Here they help further the illusion of the bookcase disappearing into the wall, too.

To add some interest to the shelves, I potted small plants in thrifted pottery. The pottery adds warmth with their reddish hues. Red and green look beautiful together! A lot of times white furniture can feel sterile and using warm colors can balance that feeling, making it more comfortable and homey.

Books

I'm sharing this bookcase with my child's books as well as more utilitarian household books. I chose to put the "ugly" cookbooks and home guides at the bottom since they aren't referenced all that often. Above them, I lined up all of the kiddo's books. I like the messy way they're all stacked side by side without care for their size of color. It feels authentic for a lot of reasons. The main one is that it would be impossible to keep them organized in any kind of way. It's just not worth my time.

The middle shelf is dedicated to all of my home, plant, and interior design books. They are my favorite and I come back to them over and over again for inspiration. I don't have enough yet to fill up an entire shelf so I decided to play a bit with the way I stacked them for this interesting balanced look. I simply stacked a few neutral covered books in the center and leaned the other books on either end upright away from the center. I gave height to the short stack by placing one of the thrift store pottery filled with plants here.

The top two shelves are my novels. I've read about half of them and am working my way through another half of them this year as part of my "Read A Book Every Month" goal. So far it's going great by the way! I ended up reading two books in February and given it's the shortest month of the year, I think that's a good sign for the rest of the months.

And the top shelf is the novel overflow and Justina Blakeney's two bohemian books. I chose to display them facing forward with my brass shell bookends for something more unique. The covers are beautifully done and the colors are my favorite so I wanted to be able to see more of them.

Wood Elements

As I already mentioned, white bookcases are great for visually disappearing but they can also feel sterile. I like to use wood baskets, decor, boxes, and trinkets to add warmth and added texture. I have a few different wood tones here but that totally works in a space with a more eclectic vibe.

The camel on the top shelf has really beautoful carbing work. I found it at a thrift store and couldn't believe my luck! It fills in the space really well since it's tall enough to balance the height of the books.

The incense box in front of the books adds a "third" to the shelf and is not only super useful for when I want to burn a stick of my favorite nag champa but also for balancing the books and plant. It also has carved details which let some of the incense aroma sneak out that I enjoy. It's a lighter wood but I like that since many of the books behind it are dark.

On the bottom shelf, I have a dark wicker basket with dog and cat toys in it. I needed something to fill in that space and it fits perfectly while tying in the wood element again. I use wood furniture elsewhere in the space light the nesting tables on one side of the recliner and the unfinished wood stool on the other.

I've repeating a lot of colors and textures throughout the space because I like them and they help a space with a lot going on in it to have good flow. But best of all, I love being here and that's the main goal of it all rules aside.

Thank you for joining me here today to chat bookcase styling. I'll be hanging out here a little while longer working on this month's book- The Winter Girl. So far it's really good and I'm totally sucked in! I hope you're well and will talk again soon 🖤