Bookshelf Style

I live in a one-bedroom apartment and even though it’s a decent size, there are limits to how many bookcases I can fit in my living room. And I’m pretty sure I’ve reached that limit. I was at 4 bookcases when I took a good look around and realized I’d been stuffing my shelves with as many books as possible to get everything to fit. Which required me to think of new and clever ways to rearrange things every few weeks and still, I had piles on the floor surrounding my desk. It probably goes without saying that I wasn’t a fan of how this looked. I despise clutter, there was no breathing room between my books (yes, this is an actual thing that I notice and think about) and I wanted to actually decorate those shelves. Something I couldn't do if there wasn't any room. So I did a few things.

One, I got rid of a ton of books. Thanks to some inspiration from Marie Kondo’s book (see my post on that experience here), I did my first bookshelf cleanse. But then a couple months after, I thought about how I just wanted to be pickier about what was on my shelves in general. I mean in a way, I’m building a personal library and I wanted it to reflect which books I really loved. So I kept culling. And culling. And culling. I’ve probably removed 6+ bags of books in the past year and donated them to the library or Better World Books and it’s been such a relief.

Second, as I said, I wanted to be able to decorate my shelves (and not just with what I read). I wanted to add photos, souvenirs from my trips and little mementos. I was hugely inspired by posts like “How to Style the Perfect Shelfie” or "Styling a Bookcase" to do this. (Although, let’s be real, these examples don’t have nearly as many books as we do.)

And lastly, I got a 5th and most likely my final bookshelf. The extra shelf let me regroup my books in a way that felt organized and allowed for decoration. I love what having all my books on display adds to the room and what it says about me. Anyone who walks into my apartment will 100% know I’m a reader.

This is a bigger introduction than I expected to write but basically I want to share how my shelves look now and maybe give you guys some ideas on how to decorate!

my YA bookshelves!

Mixed in with all the books are photos, little vases and knick

knacks, my postcard collection and pop vinyls. 

my favorites bookshelf

This has all the favorites! Favorite books, prints, souvenirs + more!

Everything else shelves

These two are placed on opposite corners of the room and are filled with

adult contemporary, new adult, classics and childhood books. They're

the least decorated because I wanted them to just blend into the room. 

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These are all my bookshelves and how I've styled them!

How do you guys style your shelves? Any tips you'd like to share with me?

Would love to hear your thoughts!