Look smart! 5 unusual ways to decorate your home with books

Will Sayner Will Sayner
homify Living room
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 In a world of tablets, smart phones and kindles it may seem as though books are becoming obsolete, but this is not so! 

Aside from the opportunity for learning, escape from the reality, entertainment and comfort that they can provide, books can also form an intrinsic part of your décor; shaping your home to reflect who you are as a person. 

With this in mind, we’ve put together a short list of creative ways books can be incorporated into interior design.

1. Decorate your shelves

 First on our list is a fairly simple solution for breathing new life into your book storage: decorate the shelves! 

Rather than utilising shelves for simple storage, use artwork, unusual materials or contrasting colours to bring them to the forefront of the room and make them an important part of the room’s design.

2. Stack them high from the ground up

 Next on our list we have an entirely different approach, do away with the shelves all together! 

Stack books in towers from the ground up and use them as tables or art pieces. Just make sure the books that you seldom read are placed on the bottom!

3. Use books to construct furniture

 Building on our last point, why not use towers of books to construct furniture? Stacks of books can be used as table legs to create unique and easy altered furniture. 

Alternatively, one can purchase furniture—such as the bed above by furniture and accessories professionals Rattania – with built in storage that when filled with books, will create the same effect without the stability issues furniture constructed with books alone may have.

4. Use the pages as wallpaper

 Incorporate books into your décor in a very literal sense, and use pages as wallpaper! 

Although, for a real bookworm the idea of tearing books apart may be a little too much, so one can always apply wallpaper that looks like pages from a book, such as the wallpaper shown here.

5. Store them in unexpected places

 Store books in unexpected places, and use the book storage to enhance the room in unexpected ways. In the above photo, placing a bookshelf behind the headboard of the bed allows the bed to be placed in the centre of the room which may otherwise have looked a little strange: books to the rescue!

 Check out these stylish ideas for beds and bookshelves for more brilliant book-based design ideas.

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