After years of Pinterest boards, I have finally built my dream home library. It is not perfect – the next one will be. But it’s a good reason to show anyone interested in what the bookshelf of a bookseller and book layout artist looks like and how I got here. But before we get to my new creation, read part 1 here and then let’s take a look back at the shelf in my last apartment.
As soon as I had moved my Tallinn books to my new apartment, where I could finally do whatever I wanted to my own walls, I started planning my shelf. I wanted a built-in, but the layout and style of the apartment didn’t really work for that. So I settled on a floating shelf system.
First, I drew a super professional sketch and transferred it to the wall using a tape measure and a lot of tape to get the feel for it.
I was lucky to have a friend in Tallinn who had time to make a custom-built row of cabinets and cut the wood for the shelves for me. And I had the pleasure of painting everything and of course, adding the books.
In case you want to know how I fill my shelves: I sort my books first into three categories: fiction, nonfiction and science fiction. Nonfiction in the middle works as a kind of connector For example: all my physics and theoretical time travel nonfiction books are next to my space travel science fiction books. While on the other side of the shelf, essays flow into fiction and poetry.
So this was the shelf right after it had been installed. I lived in the apartment for three years, and right before moving out it had evolved into this:
I was very happy with my bright and beautiful shelf. It was a perfect fit for the space and I loved sitting on my armchair and just staring at it. And Oola.
Part three, and the current shelf will be up soon 🙂