Library in Your Home

You Too Can Have a Library in Your Home
By Joey Lewitin

A library gives a house a sense of sophistication and intelligence that few other touches can. It shows that the owners value knowledge, and that they treasure wisdom enough to stockpile and organize it within their home. This can have a powerful effect on how visitors perceive you, elevating your status and respect to new heights.

Unfortunately most people don’t believe they have the resources, or even capabilities to add a library to their existing home. However, a library is actually a very simple design consisting of only three necessary components; books, shelves, and the space to put them in. Once you have these, any room, even any part of a room, can be transformed into a repository for knowledge and wisdom. In this way the creation of a library is merely the strategic implementation of those three elements, into your homes existing design.

Space

A library should ideally have a room of its own. This prevents the space from getting muddled, and losing its focus. However not everyone can devote that much space to such an endeavor. However it is possible to create a room which is both a library, and serves some other necessary purpose. In some cases, such as in a computer room, the non literary materials such as DVD’s, CD’s, or tapes can be integrated with the books to create a seamless space, while the computer can be placed in a small corner as if a reference material itself. In this way you allow the room to retain its identity as a library. Another example of this is a game room, where board games are stacked and categorized right alongside the books, and where the game table can double as a reading stand.

Even in rooms which are impossible to pass off as pure libraries, such as a bedroom, or laundry room, it is still possible to decorate with book décor. This consists of covering as much of the walls of the space with shelves, and using books as the rooms wall décor, rather then wallpaper or paint. This can take an otherwise normal or boring space, and turn it into a refined and elegant destination. If it is done in a bedroom, it will lend much of the respect and sophistication to its inhabitant that a library in the home would, while taking up a lot less room.