Organization: Color code your bookshelf

I have often looked at my bookshelves and thought...how can something meant to organize, look so disorganized?  My particular issue is that Jason's engineering books and my art/photography/and all around more interesting books have nothing in common.  His books are mostly hardback.  Mine are paperback.  His books are bland (white, black, tan and grey).  Mine span the whole color wheel.

In summary...his books are...let me just say it nicely...UGLY.   Mine are not : )


Design problem: How can I bring the two together and make it look cohesive?


I decided to approach the bookshelves the same way I approach everything else- by color.  I have seen this done before, but did not think it would translate very well in my own house.  But, here it goes...

Here is the inspiration picture:

Granted, I don't have a floor to ceiling white cubed bookcase...and I do not have bright white walls and an absolutely awesome broken down leather chair... but I do have books and I do have a bookshelf.  Yeah!!!


Here is what our bookshelf looked like before:

and here is our color-coded bookshelf:

I found when I was separating the books by color, I had more of some colors, and less of others.  At that point, I thought it would be nice to break the books up with a few objects anyway.  So, I went scrounging through my house and found a few things to fill in the bare spots.

Obviously, this idea would not work well if you are a true book lover and had thousands of books.  But, in small book collections, it is a nice way to have your bookshelf make a design statement rather than just performing a function.

At the end of the day, my goal was accomplished- Jason's books are well blended with mine.

ROYGBIV comes to the rescue once again : )

Here are a few other examples of color coded bookshelves:

Looks great using children's books...

...or cookbooks...

 ...with just a few books...

...or a ton of books.