I need a break for my brain this week. We bought a house. You might know that already. We have a couple of blank spots in the house … some missing furniture pieces — a sideboard for the dining room, any shelving ever, a couple of cool chairs and some frames. Oh yeah, there’s also this one completely empty room that needs everything. That’s okay.
Some weekends, we go on a cleaning frenzy and make progress with some boxes. Other weekends, we get started on big, daunting projects that are moving along at an okay speed. And then other weekends still, we sit on our asses and look at inspiration or shop for furniture we’ll never buy for hours and hours.
It’s fun and bonding, so I’m not complaining.
One thing I’ve found — it is really hard to find cool bookshelves. I like all of the ones below, but none of them are a killer answer to our storage problem. If they’re badass looking, they’re not very functional for a couple of avid readers. If they’re functional, they’re okay looking. The office — at the moment — has a pretty aggressive mustard on the walls, all unfinished wood (easels, desks, an antique pew, chalkboard) and it looks so monotone in that room, it actually makes me uneasy just to open the door and look at it. We need art and books and other colors on the walls stat. So I’m about to stop caring and buy a $20 shelf from Target if I don’t find something under $400 that is good looking soon.
So we’ll commence with this week’s eye candy:
Balance bookshelf on Etsy for $150.00
Corner pipe bookshelf on Etsy for $195.00
Modern industrial suspended bookcase on Etsy for $1,750.00
Custom made book rack on Etsy for $210.00
Modern walnut and steel ribbon bookshelf on Etsy for $1,600.00
Industrial reclaimed wood shelving on Etsy for $1,307.00
Modern shelving from BluDot
Skull shelf arrangements from Flavorwire
Modern bookshelf seen on Fancy
DIY pipe shelving from The Brick House
Convoy shelving seen on Fancy
If you know of any other shelving units for sale or with tutorials for DIY stints, gimme the links — I’m getting desperate.
Jen W
February 25, 2013
As a budding bibliophile myself, I spend a lot of time thinking about shelves. We have some nondescript wall-mounted white shelves in our living area, but I am always envisioning shelves like the ones you’ve posted up in our house, when we have a house.
Anyways, this project from Six Orange Carrots is doable if you’re handy (also can have a pretty cool aged-industrial lookif you have a furniture/construction salvage store nearby). http://sixorangecarrots.wordpress.com/category/project-shelf/
It’s not exactly a step-by-step tutorial, though.
Lizzie
February 25, 2013
I really love that shelf! We really want to be handy, but Isaiah and I are both all thumbs when it comes to crafts and DIY. I’ll give it a shot though!
Donna C
February 25, 2013
I’ve always been a big fan of these two: http://pinterest.com/pin/42854633926192582/ and http://pinterest.com/pin/42854633923681088/
Lizzie
February 25, 2013
I love both of those … Ikea hacks are my favorite!
Katherine | Gathered Heart
February 25, 2013
Oooh yes to the industrial pipe look! I love the corner pipe bookshelf, and I bet it would be totally easy to recreate.
I don’t know how you feel about Ikea… but that cheap Swedish megastore has quite a few great shelving options. Chris and I have five of the Billy bookcases to store our massive book/dvd/cd collection and we’ve been pretty happy with them so far.
Lizzie
February 25, 2013
RIGHT. I talked to a guy here in Fort Worth who makes shelves like that and he does a killer job … I’m seriously considering paying him for it because I’m semi lazy.
Andrea
February 26, 2013
I think I mentioned this to you at SMCFW but forgot to send the link: one of my favorite blogs features a variety of cool bookshelves, a few of which are do-it-yourself (or could probably be done yourself with some measurements and willpower): http://theblogonthebookshelf.blogspot.com/
And also, bibliophile inspiration: http://bookshelfporn.com/
Enjoy!