hogglestock

Since I moved back to Minneapolis in August 2024 my books have been smooshed into a den in the condo I’m renting. I was lucky to find a rental that had that much book storage, not sure what I would have done if that had not been the case.

Way back in April of this year, I found a townhouse to buy that is just two blocks from where I am currently living. I really love this neighborhood so I considered it a huge score. After hiring an architect to help me turn it into something that suits my needs and aesthetics, I pulled together the mood board above to help explain to her what I wanted to do with the “attic” space at the top of the house. The overall vibe is meant to be cosy and cluttered and the perfect room for reading, puzzling, listening to my CDs (yes I still buy them), and watching TV. The previous owners were using the space for a bedroom and had a Murphy bed up there and two clothes closets. Those have all been torn out and I will be replacing with a big chunk of bookshelves on the gable end and various kinds of shelves and storage on the bits where the ceiling slants down on the front and the back. The storage units will have a vibe similar to the white painted drawers in the lower right corner, but they will be tucked under the eaves like the two middle bottom photos.

(Regular readers will recognize the big image in the upper left which I blogged about earlier this year.)

That’s 13 feet (3.9m) wide, so about 91 linear feet (27.3m) for books. Initially, I was going to have the shelves go all the way to the edges similar to the gable end shelves in the lower left of the mood board, but when I decided to add bookshelves to the living room (see below) I thought I could pull back a bit up in the attic. Did I mention the attic has four skylights so the room is quite bright even on a gray day?

With the wall of books to the left, this shows the elevation of the back wall. Larger shelves for larger books and nine drawers custom-sized for my CD storage. With these cabinets shorter than counter height, you can see how low the ceiling slopes down on this side.

On the opposite wall you can see the configuration of drawers that will be near my desk. Since this drawing I have added more of those shallow drawers so I can treat them a bit like flat files for art and ephemera.

The bit in the bubble is the wall of bookshelves. Furniture layout is conceptual. The sofa is the one currently in my living room. It is low and deep and perfect for napping, I mean reading. The round table is the one I had in my kitchen in DC and will be perfect for laying out larger books for closer study and for jigsaw puzzling. My guess is I’m going to spend a lot of time in this room.

As I worked with my architect, the design for the living room on the main floor was starting to seem like it was going to end up being a museum room. You know, one of those spaces that looks good but no one ever uses. While I was feeling that way I stumbled across this image and decided to add books to my living room. Not only would this warm up the living room and make it a place I would spend more time, but it would also more than double my bookshelf capacity.

You can’t really see it in this elevation, but there was a long niche in the living room that I decided to fill with bookshelves. This adds 135 linear feet (40.5m) for books. I’m toying with the idea of having one whole row be dedicated to various objets, bric-a-brac, and bibelots, but even taking that out of circulation, I will still have tons of room for books.

For years I’ve pared books back and given so, so many away. Now I have room for all of those and then some. I’m already thinking of book buying projects I might undertake once I move in March. If I can wait that long…