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This weekend I scored a copy of San Francisco Style for only $5.99 (hurrah!), and amongst its glossy pages I found the home of Oly & Ironies co-mastermind Brad Huntzinger. If I were one notch creepier I'd be combing the Oakland Hills and peering in windows to see the interior of his house for myself- really, it's that good.
I was particularly in awe of this little library bedroom. It's a snug reading nook, but feels calming and airy- thanks in large part to the unorthodox spine-in shelving. Can you imagine how claustrophobic this room would be if the books were right-way-out? Can you imagine trying to enjoy a passage of delicate prose with Tolstoy, Milton and some crime drama breathing down your neck? (Hypothetically, of course...)
This concept isn't anything new for me. Just last week Sara of The Steampunk Home shared my own spine-in shelving experiment on her blog (thanks to Sara and her readers for such a great discussion!).
My original reverse-shelving trial was staged in our old Wallingford apartment, and since then several things have changed. We've moved to a smaller apartment in Berkeley, we now have an entire wall of our living room devoted to our library, and we have more books. If our collection was colorful and distracting before, it's a cacophonous disaster now. I'm thinking that I'm going to take a page out of Mr. Huntzinger's book: round two is in order.
Thoughts?
6 Have Spoken.:
ooh, I like this for the monochromatic look. But I'm sure it would drive Mr. Magpie cah-razy if he had to search for his books, so I think this look will have to stay in theory only for our house!
Jauntiest Magpie... That's precisely why round one failed- Adam is a chronic re-reader, and he said no! I think I might pull the flip while he's off at work and see if I can convince him to give it a chance :)
When I started reading this, I was like hey, that spine-in technique was on The Steampunk Home! I didn't connect you to it...(though actually I think that's how I found your blog in the first place!)
That would confuse me to no end though. I might not be a chronic re-reader but I take books down and muse over them all the time. It does look really good though...
I've contemplated this myself since I saw the first post from Steampunk Home. Our shelf looks rather chaotic, with three persons' worth of books cramming it to near-full (searching for roomie a bookcase to solve some of this.) Since we don't access our shelf all the time, especially the paperbacks...I suppose, for us, anything that hasn't been read yet could stay spine-out, that might be a good way to keep track. (And anything with an interesting spine, as you did in your first go. I'm the one who's the re-reader and so that's where my debate lies. ;P
Aoife... Haha, yep, that's me! I love The Steampunk Home and was beyond excited to be featured!
Amy... I found that as long as my books were still alphabetical it was easy for me to identify them by size or shape on the shelf. I'd say give it a shot though- you never know until you've tried, right?
Thanks to all for your comments :) I think I'll post another before & after next week! I've got some new ideas for book cataloging that I'd like to share...
I love the idea (found you from the Steampunk Home too) - and I'm trying to convince myself that it would work... But as it usually takes me an hour to find the book I'm looking for already, it may be a bit of a problem!
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