How we like to Style and Decorate with Books

With all of our projects and our trips back and forth between Boston and Maine, we don’t get as much time to read as we’d like - but we have been working on that! Stephen is currently on a Stephen King journey, and David, well, he’s sticks mostly to podcasts these days. Despite or varied approach, we both love to collect books that catch our eye - and we love styling with them, too. It's a fun way for guests to see what you're reading, and it’s a great way to infuse your own personality into the story of your home.

In Boston, our Parlor is home to most of our books, and we took a lot of time to style it to our liking. Here we really prioritized aesthetics over topics. In Maine however, we took a much different approach. The vibe here is undoubtedly more casual, and we consider the topic of each book - is this something that I would delve into on a rainy day?! Is this something a guest could enjoy? We also don’t have a library persay, and as a result we have found ourselves creating informal book vignettes all over.

You don’t have to have a home library, or a special bookcase to do this either. You can curate stylish book stacks on all flat surfaces large enough. A console table, kitchen counter, used as a door stop - everything is a blank canvas for your literary design moment!

Tip #1: Choosing the books

Think about your favorite books as a physical representation of you. Choose books that reflect your interests and places that are special to you - for us this means Maine, cabin design style, and all things nature. We like to blend fiction and nonfiction, as well as pick from a variety of genres (some of our stacks include Mythical Maine Creatures and Meadow Design simultaneously).

One of our favorite ways to add to our book collection is by thrifting or checking out local library sales. You can usually get a large amount of books for a pretty decent price, which is especially helpful if you have lots of shelf space to fill. We recently found a gorgeous stack of vintage Reader's Digest copies that you may notice on our living room shelves now. The covers on these are a work of art all on their own. We also picked up a few beautiful books about ducks when we were thrifting with friends a couple of months ago. Sometimes the story behind finding the books, is just as good as what you find!

Tip # 2. Building your Stack of Books

Whenever we build a styled vignette, we try to think about creating something visually interesting, but with a cohesive look. We create groupings of books that are either a blend of fiction and nonfiction but focus on a similar topic, or books that have a similar, or complimentary color palette. This mid-coast Maine mystery is on Stephen’s night stand right now, but he also has a few Maine-related coffee table books in the stack that all share a similar deep blue color scheme. But, a mix of colors is great too - it's whatever you want!

Incorporating books of different heights and sizes is another key to adding visual interest. When space allows, such as in a bookcase, alternating between vertical stacks and horizontal stacks is a good idea. And, try designing with odd numbers in mind - clustering the books in groups of 3 and 5.

Some people prefer to remove the book jackets and while it is a cleaner look, we prefer to keep the personality of the book in tact.

A few other creative ideas for building a book display could be - placing a stack of books underneath a table lamp (the added height is a bonus!), creating a seasonally inspired collection of books, or adding an open book on top of your coffee table book stack.

#3. Framing a Special Page

For a hard-copy book lover, this could be controversial - but tearing out (gently) your favorite page of a book and framing it, is another really cool way to style a space using books. Checking out flea markets or Facebook marketplace is the best way to find vintage books, comics or scripts like this.

When we had the opportunity to design Zayn’s room (David’s college roommate’s son), we framed children’s book pages to add a whimsical touch to his room. And on our new living room bookshelves in Maine, we framed a few pages of the books we recently thrifted.  

Tip #4: Finishing Touches

To round out the overall look, we usually add a small plant and some decorative items such as bookends, candles, bowls, matches, etc. Here are some of our favorite coffee table books and extras that we have in Maine right now: 

If books tell stories, then styling with them tells the tales of the people who live in your home. So, combine them in different ways, repurpose your old books, build your collection and have fun with it! Your selection of books will make for great conversation starters.

P.S. We aren't judging if you haven't read all the books you're styling with!