Tricks that keep your book shelf looking tidy

ok so the nesting has started lol and the book shelf was bugging me so I had a clean out, and it looks 80% better but I hate clutter and for me everything must have a place and look neat but the book shelf is one of those things that just never looks neat to me.

I have two big book shelves in our main open plan living area, and mainly they have books on them, well 7 medium stacks on different shelves, then there are things like photos frames a clock and the odd ornament. I am thinking maybe I get some magazine/book holder thingys. But what else can I do.

What do you do?

What do I do? I'm anally retentive about my bookshelves. It pays, because we had some visitors last weekend, and they all said how conducive our shelves were to just pulling a book off. And they did!

I keep my books dynamic - a one in one out system. I tend to keep my favourites or the ones that look nicest. If I lend one out, I can usually find one from a stash elsewhere to fill the hole.

I separate everything into specific areas, and then separate them with an ornament. So between travel literature and Spanish language, there's a little stuffed llama. We have a little document box for bits and pieces separating some other books, and a jar full of foreign coins in another spot, just to break it up.

I also keep things of similar size together where I can. Really little books, like pocket dictionaries or those little quote books, go into a gift box type arrangement, sometimes with an ornament on top.

Some will call it blasphemy, but I'm not affraid of having some books stacked horizontally. I have one small bookshelf, that is quite open, and until recently, all the books on it were horizontal. Now the lower shelf is vertical and the others horizontal, but it looks good.

I have a row of cookbooks in the kitchen, held in place between our knife block and the wall.

In our bathroom, on the window sill is a selection of old-looking books. I just decided to put them there one day and I quite like it.

So no rules, just being creative and keeping it orderly!

Audax - my shelves are similiar in that I have books of certain catergories placed together such as, novels, health, cooking etc also separated with an ornament of some sort.

I cant bring myself to stack books horizontally though, i just cant so it lol, some weird thing I got going on.

All our books are in storage at the moment (we had to declutter the house prior to selling) but one tip I often see in interior decorating mags is to colour code them.

You could try putting books of similar sizes/colours together on different shelves. You can get small unobtrusive book ends (like the l-shaped ones they have in libraries only smaller) at Smiggle...I think it looks nice to leave a space on each shelf and put some ornaments in between the books. Alternate where the spaces are to create visual interest

I have impressive-looking titles and most of the hardbacks in the sitting room, then paperbacks in DS's room. Books in a series are stored together. Those I rarely read are on the first load, with those I like in front of them. (Maybe get rid of some?) Small shelves for small books, big shelves for big books. Heavy books (eg textbooks) on the bottom shelf. No room for ornaments. DS has his own shelf, but many of his end up horizontal and not vertical. We have a big stash of DS books (the big ones, around A4 size books) under the coffee table too.

Order is just how it took me on the day. I do want a day to rearrange but that isn't going to happen. I just rotate the sitting room books every 3 months or so.

They're not neat, but they are read!