Burning Question: Yourself On A Shelf
Oprah has inspired me (how many guys have ever said that sentence?).
A few days ago, I was making dinner. Sherry was watching Oprah in the other room (i.e. drooling over Nate Berkus in the other room). That’s when I overheard Oprah say “I love seeing what’s on people’s bookshelves.” I realized I do too, and so does Sherry, so we thought we’d ask.
Pick a bookshelf or bookcase in your house and tell us 3-5 items on it that say the most about you (and why, if you’d care to explain). Maybe there’s a book you’re especially proud to have read, or one that you’re slightly embarrassed to own? Perhaps there’s a special family photo, travel souvenir or collection that you like to display? Or heck, it could even just be a decorative accessory that you think is especially telling of your style. We can’t wait to peek into your world through your bookshelf description. Sound off at the beep. Beep.
Image courtesy of Apartment Therapy.
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My collection of ceramics (made myself), harry potter and gone with the wind books, and my civil engineering text books (nerdy I know).
I have one bookshelf in my appartment and it’s chalk full of cook books! I hate clutter and waste so I always get my normal books (novels, etc) from the public library but I just love to have stacks of cookbooks to flip through. To fit my criteria a cookbook should have a picture to go with every recipe. Gotta love those glossy pages.
Other than that it just has a few storage boxes that essentially take the place of desk storage. Not as interesting.
1. A cheesy old book called Dress that we found in our garage–it’s from a 1950s home-econ class, and says that women should dress up for when their husbands come home from work. And wear long gloves.
2. A toy pink car that our daughter gave us for our 15th anniversary (when our marriage was old enough to drive)
3. Pam Houston’s book Waltzing the Cat, which I stole from the library (and then paid them for)
4. A wind up nun that spits fire
5. Tom Robbins book that he signed for me
Our bookcases are filled with university textbooks. Since I’m in academics professionally, and my husband’s an electrical engineers we are constantly adding to the collection! However, we do through in some fun stuff, like Sophie Kinsella’s Confessions of a Shopoholic, and some autobiographies like Barbara Walter’s Audition and Barack Obama’s Audacity of Hope – slightly surprising I expect since we are Canadian :)
Awwww…this is a great post! I have some senitmental things on my shelves in the office. A black and white photo of my Grandparents walking down the street of Calgary, AB during WW2 (my Grandad is dressed in full military gear too!), a collection of old books from my Dad, and candle in the shape of a football with a Clemson Paw on it!
In one side of our great room entertainment center/shelving unit:
1. a silver tea set that my husband (then-boyfriend) brought me from Turkey paired with some tiny colorful pottery my best friend brought me from the Philippines
2. two of my favorite pictures of my husband and I framed
3. a small fertility statue (I collect fertility statues from different countries which I plan to one day use to decorate my office as a nurse-midwife- I’m in midwifery school now!)
4. 3 coordinating photo albums filled with pictures of my husband and my 8 years together
5. several midwifery and feminism books, the ones I’ve actually read and treasure
6. a woven basket from Pier One with Wii parts and games!
We just got married and are very much still adding to our collection, but a few decorative accessories we have are the big, white artificial flower I wore in my hair on our wedding day, a giant conch shell from our honeymoon and the ‘W’ we had on top of our cake :)
Bookcases in our family room houses many things but the 3 most significant ones to me personally are
1) Art books we have brought back from countries we have travelled to. Art transcends all languages – we even have books that are not in a language we know
2) Scrapbooks and photobooks I have created over the years
3) A framed enlarged photo of the back of a circus elephant sitting and a boy sitting beside him with his arm around him. It’s a popular print but I love it because my husband bought it from the breakfast cafe near the first apartment we lived in, also my first residence after moving to the US.
1. My Bible
2.Picture frames with photos of my and my boyfriend (one from Valentine’s Day two years ago and one in front of a really old gorgeous movie theatre).
3. Twilight and Harry Potter.. the two series every book connoisseur should have! :)
Our big Expedit:
1) A pretty Waterford bowl we got as a wedding gift
2) A samurai sword from a friend in Japan
3) My collection of Phillies’ bobble head dolls.
i only have one book shelf in my tiny house. One of those ikea cube ones.
The is an entire row of architecture books, pictures vacations, and a few tinkets and odd toys like a tin duck that rides a bicycle when wound
What is says about me is pretty obvious, i love architecture, traveling, and am playful by nature.
My bookshelves are overrun with colorful board-books in various shades of touch and feel… that pretty much sums up our lives with two kids under 2!
BTW- I imagine one could glean quite a bit of information about you, that your bookshelves are organized down proper color order- ROYGBIV! I bet if I could read the titles I see they’re alphabetized too!!! :) Rock ON!
We haven’t put anything up in our new house yet, but at our townhouse we had floating shelves in our living room that had photographs that I took in Africa, pottery that I bought at an artists fair in Arkansas, and an old Native American vase that belonged to my grandmother. :)
Green storage boxes: we have about 6 Ikea green storage boxes strategically placed in two bookcases to hide clutters. I am a hater of clutter, and therefore, anything that cannot be beautifully display gets dumped into these boxes. They are green! It is my favorite color.
Fun reading books: I only like to display great books that I purchased to read FOR FUN ONLY. All academic books are stored elsewhere.
Diplomas: our high school diplomas are proudly being display as key items. It’s funny how our subsequent diplomas achieved are not on display.
Other decorative items: such as colorful vases, cute book ends and pictures are also placed in prominent places.
My favourite items on my bookshelf are (in no particular order…)
*A small wine bottle my brother filled with the Mediterranean (water, rocks and shells) while in Spain.
*My ampersand bookend.
*My favorite books from childhood: Where the Wild Things Are & The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles.
1. a stack of ooooold books. we collect them! circa 1950 and earlier
2. cinnamon bun candle – smells like heaven!
3. my birthday is in 4 days and i am almost positive my husband bought me this bowl by Home Accents that is white and looks like coral!
1. Our wedding cake topper (two white, intertwined birds)
2. Black’s Law Dictionary (I’m graduating from law school in two weeks! A gift from my Hubby when I mad the deceision to go to law school)
3. Home 1-2-3 book from Home Depot (We just bought our first hours in Feb)
4. Nintendo Wii
5. Two photo albums filled with polaroid pics of every guest at our wedding (very sentimental b/c our wedding photographers never gave us our wedding pics)
1) Mountains of books, all near and dear to my heard, from Tolstoy and Yeats to Bill Bryson and Barbara Kingsolver
2) A handmade black Native American wedding vase we picked up in New Mexico when visiting my grand’rents a few years ago
3) A framed silhouette of my son pasted over a print of a page from Peter Pan, which I made
4) A white elephant sculpture I bought at isuwanee.blogspot.com’s Furbish Studio sale several months ago
Most of our bookcases are completely overrun with as many books as can fit into every cranny, but our “formal” bookcases in the living room have everything from hardcover classics to our crystal to travel mementos. I love cleaning the glass doors and popping on the little lights at the top. Instantly dresses up our room for company.
Three things line our bookcase! Pillar candles of all shapes and sizes, an old ceramic jar, and a vintage style picture of us on our wedding day!
Love this post!
1. My husband’s grandfather’s old fedora hat under which is the baby cap that my nephew wore on the day he was born.
2. Small Monet painting on a block of wood with a love note to my mom from my dad taped to the back.
3. An old edition of “The Velveteen Rabbit”
4. Photo of me and my twin with pumpkins on our heads
5. Cup of shells from the Outer Banks
first off … i have 3 large bookshelves … and mostly filled with books … there are photo albums too … and storage boxes … i did watch that oprah episode too and i’d have to say that what my bookshelves say about me is we have TONS of books and that we must be avid readers … however i’m not but my husband is … we do have some ceramics that we did from our stays in mexico … then of course are all the action figures from my husband … i’d share a photo but i’d be too embarrassed … i am though trying to clean it out and make it less busy … wish me luck!
What a cute post!
I have cute built-in book cases in my living room. Of course I am always rearranging them but the one shelf that never moves has a picture of my dad when he made his first communion and big piece of corel I found when I was in FL. There is one other item. A very small photograph of my husband in the first grade. It is the youngest picture anyone has of him. When we found it, it was like we won the lotto and will always stay on display.
:)
Right now I only have one small bookshelf, but I’m hoping to graduate to a couple of the floor-to-ceiling ones that I drool over every time I set foot in an Ikea (and now that we’re getting a brand new store in Tampa – opening next week, woo hoo! – that will be happening a lot more often). Anyway, a couple of my favorite items on my bookshelf:
1. A picture of my hubby and me, taken right after he proposed on a cruise last May. We had to ask one of the cruise-ship photographers to make sure he took one with my shiny new ring in it, and it turned out perfectly.
2. A book called “Grandmother Remembers” that has question prompts that my grandma filled in for me, along with photos from her life and family recipes. She gave it to me for my 10th birthday and I loved it then, but I think I appreciate it more and more as I get older.
3. My favorite books, in particular “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger. I make good use of the library for most of my reading material, and I try to only buy books that I LOVE and know I want for my collection (and hopefully will read again). It reduces clutter and is a huge money-saver…I get so upset when I’ve spent a chunk of money on a book and end up hating it.
4. Scrapbooks and photobooks that I’ve made…lots of memories and fun to look back at!
I LOVE your site. My husband and I just put an offer on a hous and I’ve been searching for decorating and DIY ideas. Your site has now become my decorating bible. :)
Things on MY side bookshelf:
1. complete set of harry potter books – just love them!
2. a picture of my husband and i on the day he proposed
3. 2 champagne flutes with “floating” rose buds which were the give aways at our engagement party
4. custom made book from all the special women in my life given to me for my wedding
5. top shelf – vase with my dried wedding boquet
1. A picture of some American friends,several Ugandan medical students, and me in front of the sticks-and-mud dirt-floor hut that usually serves as the village church but for one weekend functioned as a medical clinic. Over the course of a day and a half, we served over four hundred patients, many of whom had never seen a doctor. It’s a picture that humbles me.
2. An antique McCoy sugar and creamer that was a wedding gift to my mother when she married my father. Beside them sits the matching teapot that I later received as an anniversary gift. (Lotsa folks would think they’re ugly, but I love them!)
3. A tiny framed cross-stitching proclaiming, “Sing to the Lord!” that one of my daughters stitched for me when she was in intermediate school.
4. A basket that my husband keeps his Bible and other reading material in.
found your site through Judy- I must say you have fabulous style and love your blog-
I will be returning- we just bought a very small home close to our business, it’s a second home for us {because we are sick of the hour and half compute} my goal is to decorate and furnish with VERY little money using things I have,- so I needs all the help I can get!
First of all, I love having a huge bookshelf in our living room that is always evolving. Right now I have a set of three prints from an artist on Etsy that has a mother bird preparing it’s nest…the first print says “ask” (mother bird singing), the next “believe” (mother bird building nest), and then “receive” (mother bird’s nest filled with baby birds). I love these prints b/c our family adopts and it takes faith and action to eventually build our family. I also have a family portrait of my husband, me and my beautiful son. Lastly I have my scrapbooks filled to the brim with pictures of my son. Of course I have items that celebrate spring like a nest. I am over my limit!
So I never imagined another poster would also say they have a samurai sword on their bookcase, but Elizabeth beat me to it. Ours was given to my husband by his dad after he earned his black belt in jui jitsu. Our bookcase is actually an old piece of furniture (found at a bargain at a flea market) that isn’t meant for books, but that’s exactly what I wanted. Behind glass doors it holds all of our books, mainly my ever-growing feminist library. I really wanted a place for books that was just for books and that’s just what we got…plus the sword, of course :)
1. A wood duck decoy my husband’s grand-daddy used to use.
2. Breaking Dawn (from the Twilight series)
3. white vases (an influence from Sherry and John and their beautiful home)
On the bookshelf in our entry way we have:
1. My mom’s high school graduation picture. One of my favorite pictures of her!
2. A white ceremic horse found a target for $2. (If there’s one thing I’m proud of, its a great sale find!)
3. By far, one of the most treasured things of ours, a huge conch shell found the morning of our wedding. A special reminder of our perfect, speical day!(Hurricane Hannah was in full force the week before our beach wedding ruining much of our pre-wedding activities. The morning of we went for a walk on the beach and the shell was found. We called it our little beach miracle!) Wow, did you want to know what was one my bookshelf or my life story?!!!!
What a fun topic! Let’s see… a verdigris stone frog sitting,dangling his legs,next to “The Wind in the Willows”, our old-looking Westie (dog) bookends, and an old milk bottle from my grandfather’s dairy in Hampton. Also our almost-complete collection of Dick Francis books.
1. A collection of antique owls including owls from different countries that were my grandmother’s, some beautiful owl’s that were my husband’s grandmother’s, and a few owls we’ve picked up on our own travels (although one is a reproduction as the antique one made by Navajo Indians was $600, yikes).
2. Germinal, my favorite modern European novel from college.
3. Numerous books on raising a puppy. Our dog is three now, but we still have to refer to them at times!
1. black/white matted and framed photo of my baby at 3mths along with a few other baby pics and family photos
2. turquoise and yellow cased glass vases
3. wooden bird tealight holder
4. decorating books
5. a chunk of turquoise brazilian agate (i stole it from my moms house!)
1) A gorgeous, very small hand-painted ceramic plate from Istanbul that has a similar to design to, but was about $1k cheaper than, the hand-woven rug I really wanted. The colors of the plate inspired the colors in the room.
2) Hand-painted nesting dolls from Russia. My hubby and I have traveled all over for work and fun, so displaying our souvenirs is important.
3) A framed photo of my grandmother, all dressed up in my parents’ kitchen on her 95th birthday. The photo inspires me to take care of myself and look great at any age.
1. Books including some by Julie Andrews, L Frank Baum, & Dan Brown (yes, my books are alphabetized by author … sigh)
2. Pictures from various baseball fields that I’ve visited
3. Classic Pooh figurines – no Disney Pooh in this household
4. Figures of cats because felines run this house
5. A great picture of my parents from about 25 years ago
1. Lots of books… my husband is quite the reader.
2. A couple of baskets to hold odds and ends (extra candles, etc.)
3. A framed invitation from our wedding
4. Pictures my husband took in Greece
5. A penguin figurine
My shelves are organized in categories so to speak; the top shelf has some “coffee table” books and albums of our granddaughter along with some Bible studies. Then I have my Gooseberry Patch books on shelf two, from there we go to my Karen Kingsbury collection along with a beautiful ceramic plate from my daughter. On shelf four we have assorted authors of books pertaining to mystery /romance that I have read and the last shelf has books of various authors of books I have yet to read along with a small ceramic bowl another daughter made for me in school.
On the most prominent shelf, Great-Grandmother Emma’s everyday teapot, a cranberry glass vase, and GranLou’s silver candy dish.
This is so interesting, I never realized how revealing my bookcase is! I have a ton of stuff in there, but just to highlight a few:
1. I have home decorating books (this is what I love to do in my spare time!)
2. Journalism textbooks (my major in college)
3. A book from my husband for our 1st wedding anniversary that shows Key West (our honeymoon destination) in black and white.
4. A few wedding pictures
5. Different styles of bird figurines (I’m really into decorating with birds right now)
Fun!
1) A hand painted wooden box that I picked up in Africa. It holds tape, scissors, glue, etc.
2) A plastic figurine of Batman that was on my 21st birthday cake that my college roommate/best friend gave me.
3) A piece of coral that I pulled out of the Red Sea in Jordan.
1. Tons of art and architecture books
2. A collection of antique wooden boxes (In jr. high I started collecting old Kodak boxes, art studio boxes, etc… I’m a hard person to shop for so naturally for the next 15 years I got wooden boxes for any special occasion. So finally with an intervention by my mother, I got everyone to stop buying me boxes!)
3. bunch of temari balls
4. couple of vintage abacuses
5. bas-relief that a very meaningful professor gave to me in grad school
My one measly bookcase in my little condo holds:
On the top shelf, pictures of my big brother, who is no longer with us…
The second shelf is for books I am currently reading for pleasure and CDs. Ones that are sentimental to me are the Jimmy Buffett books my dad passes to me once he’s finished reading them. And most of the CDs are, you guessed it, Jimmy Buffett! My dad and I have a “Jimmy-Father-Daughter sort of relationship! (We even danced to “Come Monday” at my wedding!… nerd!)
And the bottom shelf holds all of my textbooks from school. Which I’m not sure what to do with them since I’m graduating from ASU in two weeks! I think I’ll keep a few, but I’m definitely throwing out my statistics book!
Let’s see… on my bookshelves?
1) Books
2) Books
3) Books
4) Books
5) A book about how to read books (really, Mortimer Adler – check it out!)
My bookcase is a perfect illustration of how COMPLETELY opposite my boyfriend and I are. I restyled my bookcase a few weeks ago and I was horrified to see that I mostly read crap and this man is a genius.
1. HIM: “International Law,” “The Jungle”-Upton Sinclair, “Steven Hawking’s Universe” “World War I and European Society,” “Diplomacy”-Henry Kissinger
2. HER: Domino magazine(s), “Why We Suck”-Dennis Leary, “Modern Glamour”-Kelly Wearstler, “The Fashion Conspiracy,” “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
My husband and I have a TON of books (I’m a librarian and he’s an academic, so it goes with the territory). We actually have 10 IKEA Billy bookcases (the tall ones, with extensions) jammed packed with books already, each categorized by subject and in alphabetical order by author’s last name (the librarian in me couldn’t help it!).
But in our living room, we have a the square IKEA bookcase (the same ones in the picture you posted). Here, we decorated with pictures and useful things, such as:
1) Wedding and honeymoon albums
2) Collection of crystal vases from my grandma
3) Family photos, esp. old black and white ones
4) Box of cat toys
5) Board games & poker chips
Great post!
I suppose our books say the most about us — we have everything from thick engineering tomes (my husband) to throwaway chic lit, and just about everything in between. I also always like to have a few photographs in bookshelves (especially to sit on top of large books that I stack horizontally) as well as smaller items that we got on our travels (cheap souveniers from Notre Dame, small jewelry boxes a friend brought me back from India, etc.).
I moved into my fiance’s condo, so once the dust was settled and we found room for my things… my favorite bookcase consists of:
1. A picture I took on my first trip to Europe
2. A small portion of our huge collection of books- not that exciting, but our books are now all mixed together, so it’s symbolic
3. Dancer figurines that I got from IKEA for my first apartment- nothing expensive, but meaningful as I’ve danced since I was two!
4. (I couldn’t limit it!) For Christmas this year, my mom gave me a decorative globe that matched our decor because she “would give me the world if she could”-cheesy, but it reminds me of my parents and my amazing childhood!
1. Cookbooks. More cookbooks. I am addicted to cookbooks, especially beautiful ones like Butter Sugar Flour Eggs.
2. Family photos.
3. Mementos from our honeymoon in Aruba – a piece of coral, a shell, etc.
We have a built-in bookcase on both sides of our fireplace and it’s filled with lots of pictures, some books and some little nick-nacks. Everything on the shelves have special meaning to me, but my favorite items are:
1. The Alchemist – one of my all time favorite books.
2. Picture of my brother and sister kissing me on my cheeks at my weddings. We’re like the 3 musketeers!!!!
3. Roses that my husband gave me when we first started dating.