woo, boy. brace yourselves. books are both hidden and displayed everywhere.
but first.
prologue: let’s start with a list
many many years ago, I made a list of all the things I truly loved for our living space. (so this list has served us both in our teeny, tiny apartments, as well as our current home.)
according to my list, I love whites, creams, beiges, navys, blues, pinks, oranges, golds, bamboos, wickers, rattans, leopards. I love displaying sentimental pieces and happy memories in our home - photos, maps, magazine clippings, pieces of art, whatever. I love white sheets, white towels, white cribs, white drawers, and white shelves. I love soft lamp lighting, as opposed to overhead lighting. I love the scent of light citrus. I love cozy seating, lots of blankets, and plenty of books. (The list goes on.)
first of all, The List makes it INCREDIBLY easy to shop and decorate. i am never tempted by things not meant for me - even if they’re a great price or even if they’re super trendy on Pinterest or even if they just look so cute in that girl’s photo. my list pinpointed what I truly loved. and really, I believe your home should only be filled with things you love. and I believe that’s still possible to do, even with little people running amuck.
also to note: Brett and I made a deal early on. He said I could decorate where we lived however I wanted, as long as he had plenty of comfy places to sit, plenty of Google Home products, and plenty of good food (and he said plenty of something else, but I’ll omit that and just let you fill in the blank). Highly, highly recommend a deal like this. I took that deal and RAN.
but really, this list helps me prioritize. this list showed me that what was truly important to me was, for example, having a home filled with books. so I worked to make that happen.
and first let me note how we have so many books. we love books, and this has been a slow process through the years. we keep a wishlist of books we’d love to receive, perfect for gifts from loved ones. most holiday gifts involve new books, we have a “books + puzzles” line in our budget, and I also keep my eyes peeled for good books at thrift stores, garage sales, the used section of Amazon, Facebook Marketplace, and our neighborhood groups (both the resale group and the “buy nothing” group).
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here’s all way places books are stored, displayed, and hidden in our home.
the weird tiny hallway/nook thing between the kitchen and our bedroom
with the help of four of these smaller picture ledges from Ikea and four of these longer picture ledges from Ikea, we turned this otherwise wasted, unused space into a library.
(we’d have one small picture ledge on one wall, and one longer picture ledge on the other wall, then have the picture ledges meet in the corner, if that makes sense.)
right now it’s mainly cookbooks, but this could totally change with time and more kids.
coming soon: a baby gate that’ll block off this whole wing of the house. brett’s making a baby gate, inspired by this.
kk’s tiny bookshelf in our den
see our baby bookshelf with themed, seasonal books blogpost for more on this
this monthly bookshelf is one of the big ways we decorate for holidays. here are the other things we prioritize instead of lots of holiday/seasonal decor.
kk’s tiny toy shelf
in our den, we have a tiny cube unit to which I hot glued white foam board to the back. thanks to the inspiration of this course and this book, this cube unit is where we keep KK’s toy rotation.
side note: it was important to me to have kid things seamlessly worked into our main area, since that’s where we spend the majority of our time. and while yes, we could use our fourth bedroom as a playroom, we wanted to keep that as our home gym/Brett’s seed growing room to be able to recharge as parents. so our den/wide hallway/dining-ish room serves as a play area. I felt veryyyy strongly about this, as I wanted to be able to keep an eye on my kids playing while I made food, etc.
we use this dish rack to hold several books that are relevant or interesting for whatever reason (but may not “fit” into our themed, seasonal bookshelf). right now she loves small, tiny books she can hold, so I put a few of those out. and Brett brought some vegetables in from his garden, so I added a vegetable book.
I also plan to use this space to put books about an upcoming life event. like books about the location/mode of transportation when we have an upcoming trip. :)
a hidden basket in our den
one of our best wedding gifts was a bar cart from my college best friend. and while I’d love a skirted table in this spot in our den, the bar cart makes for THE best hidden book storage.
when I was pregnant with KK, I had awful nausea for a few weeks and screens of any kind gave me the worst motion sickness. so I ordered a big, big pile of used books and read like a maniac. these books - along with any tangible fiction books I’ve picked up since then - live in this basket.
read more about my pregnancy here.
kk’s eating cart in our breakfast nook
once KK started solids, we took our beloved rolling cart and turned it into what we affectionately call “the eating cart.”*
we loaded the eating cart up with a whole bunch of soft cloths (for both cleaning surfaces + messy faces), spray bottles of water, our favorite wipes dispenser with plenty of baby wipes.
we also tucked our favorite questions book down here for easy access during meal times. this book was originally purchased when we were college babies and dating (there’s still a note from Baby Haley in it!), and we’ve referred to it throughout the years, primarily on long drives and road trips. but when KK was born and we were stuck at home both with a newborn and a pandemic, we craved some sort of date. so we started eating dinner at the table each night and pulling out our book of questions. and that’s why the book lives near the dinner table.
our two-person desk that also serves as a console table to our couch
can you tell I love mixing in a whole lot of white Ikea pieces in my home? I’m not even finished yet.
this is our beloved two-person desk. it used to be in our home-office, but when brett took over that room to work from home 100% of the time, I wanted a place that I could use as a desk (and a place I could check emails while KK was playing). So we moved it to back up to our den couch - a console table and desk in one, if you will.
it’s three alex drawer units from Ikea, with a kitchen counter on top. the end. (sorry, I didn’t link the kitchen counter top because I can’t for certain remember which one it is. I just remember, at the time of purchase, it was $45ish dollars.)
anyway. in the drawers, I store books, binders, and notebooks. (mainly business/household ones.) and then oftentimes, whatever books I’m reading on the couch at night end up in a pile on the desk itself.
this small sliver of hallway that was otherwise unused
we love to grab a travel book for any upcoming trips. which now means we have this great collection of travel books, filled with sentiment and happy memories. with four of the shorter ikea picture ledges, we turned this tiny, small sliver of hallway near the guest bath into a great display of our past trips.
we love to grab an ornament, a travel book, and - if possible - a puzzle for trips we’ve been on. see our full list of traditions here.
our first year of marriage we attempted twelve trips in twelve months. read more about that here.
coming soon: a baby gate that’ll block off this whole wing of the house, as this tiny hallway leads to both a bathroom, brett’s seed-growing stuff, and our workout equipment. (brett’s making a baby gate, inspired by this.)
our beloved hallway storage
still obsessed with this hallway project. I wanted hallway storage that wouldn’t make our hallway seem narrower, and I wanted storage that could adapt and change with us as our family (and needs) changed. books are definitely kept in one of these drawers. the drawers are very shallow, but we love that - it keeps it from getting too cluttered, as every drawer has to have a definitive purpose or category.
it’s three ikea shoe cabinets. i changed out the hardware (not linked, because I was not pleased with the company’s customer service. but if it helps, know i googled “chinoiserie knobs”). brett removed the original tops of the cabinets, and replaced it with one long piece of wood so that the three units appeared to be one continuous piece. (brett found through internet search the color of paint to use to match the ikea paint - I’m sorry I don’t know the name or link to this!)
other faqs about the gallery wall/frames/storage unit found in this instagram post.
the big ol cube units in the kids room
where we store allllll our kid books when they’re not being used in our den bookshelf. read more about this in my post about our baby bookshelf (and alllll our kid books).
many years ago, I was a teacher with a TREASURED picture book collection. and i kept it safe (and moved it to four different times), knowing I’d love these books even more with my own children.
so I had quite a bit of books before we had kids, but, as I stated above, we also keep a wishlist on amazon of books we’d love to receive, perfect for gifts from loved ones. most holidays involve new books, we also have a “books + puzzles” line in our budget, and I keep my eyes peeled for good books at thrift stores, garage sales, Facebook Marketplace, and our neighborhood groups (both the resale group and the “buy nothing” group).
brett’s office
six of the longer ikea picture ledges (three rows of two) make for “daddy’s library” in brett’s home office. he says he gets compliments all the time when he’s on video calls. (and, he uses his books a lot more now that they’re not shoved in his closet.)
my nightstand
a few books are tucked in these drawers (and sometimes piled on top of the nightstand itself if I’m reading in bed). the nightstands were from facebook marketplace for pennies until we could afford something better (one day I’d love dressers or skirted tables), but right now I love the how many books the drawers can fit. because of this, i hardly notice the broken handle (which is why i haven’t bothered to fix it) or the fact these were our temporary solutions.
the hallway dresser right off the garage
right off our garage and laundry room, we have a little nook for what we assume was supposed to be a mudroom situation. but being new, first-time homeowners, we didn’t have the disposable income for a project like that. so we took brett’s childhood dresser and stuck it there as a drop zone for our keys, my purse, brett’s multiple pairs of sunglasses, shoes, etc. right now we also have a big ol bottle of my favorite hand sanitizer there (something we did for postpartum, but ended up being reallyyyy handy for a pandemic), and our beloved baby hiking carrier is sitting here from a recent weekend adventure.
but anyway! i love having a dresser here for the hidden storage. this dresser is mainly a catch-all for our photos (we had a hallway dresser in my childhood home for this purpose, so i wanted one, too) but I also throw in miscellaneous decor/home projects, as well as extra driving/walking things (sunglasses, extra masks, stroller fans, travel white noise machines, keys, etc.)
also in this dresser? books I’m done reading and would love to pass on to loved ones.
aaaand then some random piles just accumulate around the house
it happens. sometimes my purse or car might have a paperback I’m reallyyyy loving as well.
ALSO. shout out to my kindle app, libby app, and audible app
because my phone (and ipad) have lots of other books on them, thanks to these apps as well.
read allllll my Reading FAQs (like how I find time to read + my favorite ways to read) here
