Behind The Scenes: The Library
An inside look at my ultimate reading space
I bought my house in January of 2025, and when I toured the place, I found the one room that I knew would immediately become my sanctum of all things books. We went down into the basement, which has a beautiful main entertaining area with hardwood floors and a gas fireplace, and in a room just off the main area was a bedroom. I stood in the middle of the room and knew the low ceilings and the warmth would make it an enduring library.
I set about the next few months intermittently working on the room, moving all of my books in boxes (there were so, so many boxes), and setting up bookshelves. I bought an area rug with animals all over it, a comfortable armchair, and a standing lamp. I hung candles up with fishing string from the ceiling to make it look like there were floating candles. I had a vision, and a mission to concentrate all of my Harry Potter and magic memorabilia and make this a magical and fantastic library.
I didn’t stop there. As you can see in the picture above, I hung string lights throughout the room, creating a comfortable ambiance without overhead lighting. The Billy bookshelves nearly reached the ceiling of the room, which was relatively low, creating a cave-like feel that might make someone feel claustrophobic, but it was like a warm hug full of books. I could only fit 7.5 bookshelves in the room, and even that didn’t feel like I had enough. I built an IKEA armchair and had to be conservative about how it fit into the space, not wanting a massive armchair that felt more like a bed than a reading chair.
Needless to say, I have a lot of books, and I have started to run out of room. I’m on a continuous quest to reorganize, and I’m trying to decide which books I'll eventually unhaul and donate or put in my department library at work. I’ve even debated putting up a Little Free Library in front of my house, which I’ve decided I’ll probably do in the spring. This 80 square foot room can only hold so many books, and I’ve started to stack books in front of the shelved books, so it’s starting to look like a mad magician’s library. I have other books in other parts of the house, such as art and writing books in my office and cookbooks in the dining room, so they didn’t take up a lion’s share of the space in here. My wife has her romance novels in her office; I don’t have a single romance novel in my library here, and if there is a romance element, it is secondary.
Last but not least, I needed a good spot for my dog to hang out while I read, played my video games, or wrote. I had gotten a lot of good carpets for my new house from Ruggable and had stacked up quite a few points, so I got a nice memory foam bed for her to lie on. She’s attached to my hip, so wherever I go, she has to be nearby, and she needed to be comfortable, too. If you want one for your own pup, this is the one I got.
This is one of my favorite projects to have worked on in my new house, and it took months to set up and tweak the way I wanted it. I needed it to be a sanctuary of books, dedicated to relaxing and diving into deep worlds, and to be inspired to create. I always dreamed about having a full, dedicated library, not just a few bookshelves in a room with a different function, and I feel blessed to have one. If you have a library of your own, drop a picture in the comments! If you have any suggestions for making my space even neater, I love recommendations.
