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If you’re like me, you collect way more books than you have room for. And if you live in a small house or apartment, it’s even harder to fit your oversized book collection anywhere. Here are some ideas for storing books in a small space—without resorting to stacking them (dangerous and messy, in my opinion!) or cluttering table space with books.
Put in Corner Bookcases
If your house is like ours, you have a lot of unused corners. Putting corner shelves in these spots makes them perfect for storing books.
Use Existing Ledges
For some reason, our basement stairway has a ledge running along the left and back side of it. Perfect place for my smaller books? I think yes. Look around your home for ledges and nooks and crannies you can store books in!
Use Space under the Bed
For maximum storage, you can get rolling containers that you can fill with books, then just roll them under your bed to store.
Use Space behind Doors
The wall behind a door is basically unusable space. How about putting a thin bookshelf behind it then?
Use Super-Thin Shelves
Only have room in a hallway for a very thin shelf? Put in a few and simply place your book with the covers facing outward. It’s beautiful decoration, plus every book stored is a win!
Of course, if you have the hallway space, put deeper shelves in and pack in those books.
Get a Bookshelf Headboard
Forget those fancy wooden or decorative metal headboards. What your bed needs is a bookshelf headboard full of books!
Use Space underneath Furniture
Have a coffee table or nightstand or a window seat? Either buy one with shelves underneath, or install your own shelving. This is a great way to store a lot of books!
Install Shelves up High
Install shelves up high on the wall. These shelves can be just above head height so they’re not in your way, but they’re still accessible with a step stool. (And if you don’t keep a foldable step stool on your main floor, I highly recommend it—I use mine all the time.)
If you’re buying pre-made shelves, make sure they can support the weight of your books (because many can’t, especially if they’re those beautiful floating shelves). To hold all that weight, the shelves will also need to be anchored into studs, not drywall. Heavy duty shelves should be thick and made of hardwood (not softwood or pressed wood), and the anchoring system should be heavy duty metal securely anchored into the wood shelf (not held in place with adhesive).
You can either buy a few complete shelves to install, or, if you’re handy, you can save a lot of money by DIYing this. You can find plenty of tutorials online that will walk you through making a frame of hardwood planks and covering them with stained or painted plywood.
Use Small, Empty Wall Spaces
In our house, we found that we had unused wall space above our toilets and on our stair landing. We ended up buying and installing (drilling into studs, of course) pre-made cabinets with two shelves. Some hold books, and some hold other items that allowed us to make more room for books elsewhere. We also used over-the-toilet shelves in some of the bathrooms where we had a lot of overhead room.
You may have other unusable nooks and crannies in your home. Simply add some shelving for an efficient and beautiful book storage solution.
Replace a Door
Replace a less used door with a bookshelf door? Yes, please, that sounds wonderful.
Transform Dividing Walls into Shelving
Have a dividing wall (not load-bearing), or a railing that extends at the top of a stairway? You can convert those into a bookshelf!
Transform Your Staircase to a Bookshelf
Each step of your staircase can be transformed into its own bookshelf!
We suggest you consult with a building expert before trying this to make sure the stairs can hold both the books and the weight of people going up and down them.
In your basement (or main floor, if you don’t have a basement), you can also open up the wall under your stairs and transform that into a bookshelf. It’ll still leave you with some under-the-stair storage place for other items too!
What are some ways you store books with limited space? Let us know in the comments below!
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