Tag Archives: libraries

Our Holiday Wish For You: Cozy Reading Spaces

Hi everyone!  As we mentioned on Wednesday, today will be our last post of 2014. We are both looking forward to lots of time with our families in the next two weeks, but also hoping for some quiet moments amid the chaos of the holidays. We are each deep into great novels right now (Katie is reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and Mera is reading book three of the Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante). Our year-end wish for you, dear Red House West readers, is that in the coming weeks you too can find a quiet moment to cuddle up with an engrossing book, or furry creature or, better yet, both. With that in mind, we bring you this cozy roundup of beautiful reading spaces. We look forward to seeing you back here after the New Year and wish you the happiest of holiday seasons.

Which one would you most like to curl up in?

Pinterest Friday: Bookshelf Inspiration

Hi everybody and welcome to the third edition of Pinterest Friday!  One Friday a month we comb our Pinterest boards to pick out our favorite spaces and design ideas.  This month, because both of us are voracious readers and book lovers, we decided to do a roundup of the dreamiest bookshelves we’ve seen.  If you’d like, you can check out previous Pinterest Fridays here.

From Katie:

Yes please!  This is such a pretty space with its tall windows and curved shelf–add a cozy chair and I’d never leave.

The varying shelf heights make this visually interesting, and I really like the way art, objects and textiles have been incorporated into these shelves (but that it’s still primarily books).

Shelves with textiles

From Domino Magazine originally, but image found here

Man, this is so amazing that I don’t even care that there doesn’t seem to be a way to reach those upper shelves.  I’d happily clamber right up the front of them if I could have this in my house.

From Mera:

When we were in London we stayed in a great flat where most of the doors had bookshelves above them.  Space was at a premium, so it was practical, but there was also something really magical about it, and it’s a modest detail that I’m really drawn to:

[I can't find a proper source for this--if anyone knows where it originated, let me know and I'll add it in--giving proper credit is important to us!]

[I can’t find a proper source for this.  If anyone knows where it originated, let me know and I’ll add it in–giving proper credit is important to us!]

Speaking of magical, I’ve got two words for you: library ladder.  Can’t you just picture yourself braving the top rung to pull out an old tome, blowing a cloud of dust off to discover a first edition, or crumbling pages filled with ancient family secrets?

And finally, I love the grand scale and architectural detail in these shelves:

Source

Source

Thanks for perusing our bookshelf pin collection!  And speaking of perusing our pins, we’ve recently combined our Pinterest accounts into one account for Red House West.  If you’re a Pinterest user, you should follow us!  Have a great weekend everyone!