5 Tips for Organizing a Book Shelf

Bookshelves serve a function in our homes, but there’s no need for them to look sloppy. When it comes to organizing our book shelves, I’ve always been a little picky about it. But really, it only takes a few extra minutes to make them look great, so why not?

Here are five tips that I use to keep our shelves looking tidy.

Clear off the top of the book shelf and limit the items to only a few. Surfaces like these easily become drop off zones. When we purchased the new shelf in our front entrance I got after my family for about the first three days reminding them that it’s not a place to drop their junk off:

Keep “like” titles together. If you have book sets, organize them so they are in groups.

Books look so much tidier when they are grouped:

This is my favorite and most important tip: ensure that the lines at the top of the books swoop from tallest to lowest and back again. You don’t want to see: tall, short, tall, short, short, tall….

What you want is: tall, shorter, shorter yet, and shortest. Then a bit taller, taller yet, and tallest.

See how I’ve done it in the photo below? I have created rolling hills. The goal is gradual hills, not speed bumps.

Pull the books forward so that all of the spines line up. Notice how they are all about an inch away from the front edge?

Then lay a few of the smaller books on their side. They act as a great looking book end:

See that bookend that we created by putting a few little books on their side?

You are loved by an almighty God,

Darlene