Book Heaven: 7 Great Tips to Build Your Own Home Library

Do you have a book collection? Have you read the adventure memoir book? Have you ever tried to read a book in your kitchen or living room and someone keeps interrupting you?

It happens more often than we’d like. A solution to this problem is to designate an area of your home as a library.

This signals to others (and yourself) that this space is solely for the purpose of reading and diving into the written realms.

Keep reading to find out 7 tips on how to build your own home library so you can keep reading in peace.

1. Choose the Location

Choosing a suitable location is the first step to build your own library. Ideally, we’d all love to have a separate room with a door so that we can shut out the world.

If you have such a room available — use it. Otherwise, think about other ways to create a library in shared spaces like the dining room, living room, or even your bedroom.

No matter what space you go with, make sure you choose a place that isn’t too humid or damp. This can lead to moldy pages, which is something you don’t want to mess with.

2. Imagine the Vibe of Your Home Library

Once you have an idea of where your library will live, it’s time to let your imagination run wild.

Think about how you want to design the space so that you can make it feel however you’d like. You might want it to be warm and inviting with dark tones and wood grain. Alternatively, you may want it to feel lively and inspiring by using various colors and textures.

Visualize yourself in the best library you could imagine. What colors are involved? What style of decor? What types of lighting?

Once you have these questions answered, you can start piecing together your haven.

3. Designate a Place to Sit

In a home library room, you’ll have the freedom to choose the furniture you’d like to use. This means comfortable chairs, a love seat, or a desk surface for heavy novels and writing.

When your library is in a shared area, you may be limited to what furniture you can use. Still, you should try to allocate a chair in the space that’s intended to use for reading time.

This will allow you to have free space to sit and relax whenever you want. Keep the chair clutter-free of newspaper, books, and personal belongings. Instead, you can have a small table next to it or an open place on your shelve to store things.

4. Create Storage for Your Books

A library is simply piles of books if you don’t have a place to put them.

You have a few options for book storage. The first is recessed or built-in shelves. This costs more but gives you more floor space.

The second and most common option is to utilize tall bookshelves that span from the ceiling to the floor. This allows you to access the most vertical space possible for all of your favorite reads.

When deciding shelving, think about how many books you have and how many you’re bound to get in the foreseeable future. From there, you can decide how much storage you need and how to arrange your space.

You can get creative with storage by using floating or modular shelves if it suits your fancy.

5. Secure Shelves to the Wall

Unfortunately, if you simply plop bookshelves into a room without considering safety factors, you may run into trouble down the line.

This piece of furniture is typically heavy, not to mention the pounds that will be added with your book collection. To prevent any mishaps, be sure to secure your shelves to the wall using brackets and hex head bolts.

You’ll want to use a stud detector to find a secure place to attach the shelve. Another consideration of bookshelves’ safety is the total weight of the shelve. Be sure to find out if your floor can support such heavyweight to prevent damage to your home and to keep it from becoming unstable.

6. Organize Your Books Accordingly

Since it’s your home library, we’re not going to tell you how to organize your books. Rather, we’re suggesting several methods to arrange them.

The most classic organization technique is the Dewey Decimal Classification System. Libraries use this method to keep similar books in the same area. It uses the following 10 categories:

  • Generalities
  • Philosophy and psychology
  • Religion
  • Social sciences
  • Language
  • Natural sciences and mathematics
  • Technology and applied sciences
  • The arts
  • Literature and rhetoric
  • Geography and history

If this isn’t relevant to you or an appealing method, you can organize your books alphabetically, by color, or in order of importance.

Keeping it organized will help you save time looking for certain books. More time = more reading time.

7. Take Care of Your Collection

Finally, it’s important to note that having a dreamy library requires taking care of your books.

This means that you should refrain from stacking books in awkward ways that may damage soft covers or pages. It also means avoiding cramming books into the shelves like a forced puzzle piece.

Additionally, you’ll want to occasionally clean the library to keep the books from degrading. There’s no timeline on when you should do this. Rather, you should keep an eye on dust accumulation and take care of it when it becomes too dirty.

When cleaning, remove the books from the shelves. Clean the shelves with a dry rag and then give the books themselves a dusting (and perhaps a polish for hardcovers).

While doing this, you may find that you can donate or gift old books you’ll never read again to someone else. This can free up shelving space for new books and help you keep an updated library.

Create the Dreamiest Library Imaginable

By following these tips, you’ll be in your home library in no time.

Designate a location, customize it to fit your needs, and take care of your books so that you can read them for the rest of your days. If you want to add more books for your dream library, see and find here a complete list of the best books of the month .

Keep reading our blog for more ideas to create the life you want to live.