A home library can tell your life story

If you own a lot of books, it’s great to have a place to celebrate and enjoy them. That’s why a home library can be so appealing: It’s a welcoming retreat where you can appreciate and be inspired by volumes you’ve collected over the years.

“Libraries are inherently personal, where you’re surrounded by the things you love,” said Courtney Coleman, a founding partner of Brockschmidt & Coleman, an interior design firm with offices in New York and New Orleans. “It offers a kind of personal history, because it reflects things that have informed your life and that you’re interested in.”

Coleman and her partner, Bill Brockschmidt, routinely design home libraries for their clients that feel like special destinations, where homeowners and visitors are encouraged to spend hours turning pages.

Here’s how they and other designers create home libraries that feel like much more than storage spaces.

Having a dedicated room for a home library is a wonderful thing, but space constraints don’t always allow for one. If you lack a spare room to turn into a library, one can be added to a space you might not have considered, such as a wide hallway, an alcove or even an unused corner in a larger room.

When Brockschmidt & Coleman designed a compact house for an author with one big living space, for instance, they created a library by wrapping the walls around the dining table with built-in bookcases.

Sean Anderson, a Memphis, Tennessee-based designer, created a library while designing an apartment in Tribeca, in New York City, by making the most of a corridor that was wide enough to accept bookcases and furniture. “It had primarily been a pass-through, but was larger than most hallways,” Anderson said. “A lot of these spaces aren’t strictly libraries; they are multifunctional spaces.”

Take stock of your books and determine how much space you need to store and display them. Free-standing bookcases are one option, but many designers prefer built-ins that stretch wall to wall, and floor to ceiling, so the volumes almost look like wallpaper once they’re put in place.

Anderson has also designed multipurpose built-ins that include an integrated desk and cabinets with doors to rein in any clutter — ragged paperbacks, board games, reading lights — “so some of the mess can be concealed,” he said.

Another option is to use a table for storage and display. When Robert Stilin, a New York-based interior designer, wanted to add a library to his former Manhattan apartment but didn’t have much space, he pushed two tables together in a corner of the living room and added wooden storage boxes below.

“There were books stacked on tables and books in these boxes,” said Stilin, who also likes piling books on desks and credenzas, where they can easily be picked up and admired. If you don’t have empty expanses of walls for bookshelves, he noted, “you just have to improvise.”

A library should feel like an escape within the home, which makes it a great place to play with elements such as deep paint colors, wall coverings and wood paneling.

“You’re trying to create a cozy nook,” said Cece Bowman, an interior designer based in Palm Beach, Florida, “and it can be totally different from the rest of the house.”

When Bowman was working on a library in Palm Beach for her former employer, Kemble Interiors, she painted the bookshelves and trim a light turquoise to evoke the beachy location, and added depth with a geometric wood veneer wallcovering on the ceiling and shell-patterned wallpaper on the walls.

Suzanne and Lauren McGrath, the mother-and-daughter founders of the New York-based interior design firm McGrath II, also aim to establish a real sense of warmth when designing libraries. “Usually, these rooms are more enclosed, cozy spaces,” Lauren McGrath said. “So we tend to move toward richer colors and more pattern, and have a little fun with them.”

The pair wrapped the walls and ceiling of one library in butternut oak paneling. “The walls, bookcases and ceiling are all this incredibly warm color,” Suzanne McGrath said. “Then we were able to take liberties with rich, deep colors on the furniture,” by using textiles in hues such as ocher and navy.

Brockschmidt & Coleman once turned a sun porch into a dramatic library. “We wanted to give it a book-like atmosphere,” Brockschmidt said, even though sun porches are normally breezy and bright. “So we painted the walls a dark color and added wool curtains and a leather sofa.”

A comfortable place to recline while reading is a must, so indulge in furniture you can sink into, such as deep armchairs and plush sofas. In the library Anderson designed in Tribeca, he placed a bedsize sofa with a high back in one corner of the room and a generous upholstered armchair in another.

“It’s really nice to have somewhere you can curl up,” he said. “Often, that means using oversized, larger pieces.”

If you’re short on space, try to include at least one fantastic reading chair. For traditional libraries, Brockschmidt & Coleman has sourced antique wood-and-leather armchairs; for contemporary ones, Stilin has used chairs with more curvaceous designs. Then stock the room with soft accessories such as pillows and throws that can be used to fine-tune comfort levels, and make sure every seat has easy access to a coffee table or side table for holding books, drinks and snacks.

To help create a cozy vibe in a library, look beyond a single bright ceiling fixture at the center of the room. A more appealing lighting scheme usually involves using more fixtures at dimmer levels to bring a warm glow exactly where it’s needed.

Add table and floor lamps with shades that direct light down toward chairs, sofas and desks. “In most libraries, we’ll put little standing lamps next to pretty much every sofa and chair,” Lauren McGrath said, in addition to softer, shaded fixtures for ambient light.

Another appealing touch is to highlight bookcases with light. “For a long time, we did picture lights,” Coleman said, which she and Brockschmidt mounted at the tops of bookcases to illuminate the shelves. More recently, they’ve been mounting sconces and wall lamps with adjustable arms to solid areas between bookcases, adding a decorative element to the illumination.

Your book collection communicates details about your passions and past, so you can continue personalizing the space with meaningful accessories such as family photos and collected keepsakes.

“I love a library with lots of family photos in old silver frames,” Lauren McGrath said. “There’s also an opportunity to put things you’ve collected over the years on the shelves to give them a bit of levity.”

Stilin also likes how objects and art can make a library feel casual, more like a hangout space than just an archive. “I like to include objects and have a mix, which gives the room a more interesting character,” he said. “If you’re a book collector and a collector of other things, you want to have all your finds around you.”