Rainbow Bookshelf Styling
November 12, 2018
One area in my life I will forever have difficulty minimizing is my love for books. However, if it’s something that brings you joy, I think having a collection of something is justifiable. I recently restyled my home office bookshelves to spark even more joy by arranging my books and miscellaneous favorite objects d’art in rainbow order. Since this restyle, I find myself just popping into this room for a peek at my pretty library. Here are some of my tips and details about my bookshelves:
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Along the top shelf is a collection of white pottery my mom collected from flea markets and garage sales over the years. This shelf is backlit by a strand of rope lighting which I have on a timer and makes a beautiful glow in the library while lighting up the collection.
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To restyle the bookshelves, I took absolutely everything off the shelves, dusted them, and started grouping books in ROYGBIV stacks. Then I determined my general layout of white books on the left, black on the right, pops of color in the center of the shelves, and lastly started with the red books working my way down the rainbow.
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In order to keep things interesting, I would vary the placement of books placing some traditionally upright, some in stacks, and some displayed in front of the upright books, interspersing objects that coordinated with the book colors.
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To really emphasize the rainbow element, I dedicated an entire row to horizontally stacked books (which also allowed for more book placement than vertically stacked) in rainbow color order.
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For more visual interest, I placed art behind some books to add depth. I also love the look of hanging smaller art pieces to on the bookshelves for even more dimension.
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The bottom bookshelf row is my collection of Martha Stewart magazines, dating back to the first issue from 1990. I had a mismatched collection of magazine files, and covered them in black and white stripe gift wrap to unify the collection.
