Books are a commodity every home should have in abundance. A source of entertainment, knowledge and discovery, from classic novels and modern fiction to atlases and cookbooks, there isn’t a single useless book in existence.

However big or small your collection is it can be a challenge to store them all neatly together in a way that compliments your home’s interior décor. There are plenty of fascinating ways to go about storing and showing off your collection, and they don’t all have to cost the earth.

Unique Ways to Store and Display Books at Home

Homemade Bookshelf

Tired of the same old IKEA bookshelves? Sick of the standard dull brown ones every other furniture store has on offer? Why not make your own? Building your own bookshelf is a fun and rewarding project with an incredibly useful end result.

It is a cheaper alternative to buying one new and avoids the hassle of getting a fully formed bookshelf in through your doorway if you create it in the room where you want it to stand. Even if you’re not the keenest on DIY, crafting a bookshelf is relatively easy with its rectangular shape and simple materials.

Unused Fireplace

Think about unused spaces in your house and how they can be converted into storing books. With central heating, so common many fireplaces are now rarely used, which makes them perfect for transforming into bookshelves. Insert a couple of shelves to tidily store a few books or just pile them up to create a messier but chic feel.

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Balance Bookshelves

Balance bookshelves don’t hold as many books as conventional shelves but they can be installed on any wall in your home to instantly add more intrigue to it. Install two small shelves at different levels and nail in three hooks above them, attaching rope between them all so it gives the impression of a set of scales. You can then mess around with placing unread books on one and read on the other, or good reads on one side and bad on the other etc.

Box Shelves

Available to buy and assemble yourself or a cheap and cheerful idea, box shelves allow plenty of customisation to fit in with your interior decorations. You can use a variety of different shaped and sized boxes to create unique stacking combinations to fit in any area large or small to store your books. Paint or stick spare coloured paper on the inside and out to match the room and add a bit of class to the box shelves.

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Back To Front

It may not be the most practical but it is certainly a unique twist on storing books; line them up with the spine facing inwards! Curious guests (and yourself) will never know what they’re pulling out.