Open floor plans are pretty, but, the bookshelf situation and the fact that noise carries MUCH FURTHER can cause problems.
I have become a more of a fan of hallways and doors than I would ever have thought because of trying to be quiet for others, or, hearing the TV when someone is NOT trying to be
My dream home is almost literally the floor plan of my fourth-grade best friend’s house. It had a large LR, but a good bit of wall to mark off the dining room and ::whispers reverently:: a separate-but-open-one-side-to-LR “library” area with a full wall of built-in bookshelves. Dreamy!
We did that in one of our apartments. Wound up with a "dining room" library. That was when we decided that 14 bookshelves were too much for an apartment tiny as ours and consolidated our book collection. Then the used bookstore that gave us credit went out of business.
My sadly-departed used bookstore had two buying options
- Bring us the books on Buying Days, we'll tell you want we want to buy and give back the rest
- Bring us the books any time, we might give you some credit, but you're really buying space in your own bookshelves,
you won't get the rest back.
In grad school, we had a masonite cheaper-than-billys shelf system used as a room divider, half full of textbooks and half of lighter-weight stuff. It moved entertainingly during earthquakes, and one day we noticed it had become 6" shorter (still held up by the books on the bottom shelf.)
Ah, we ran into this when we moved from a one thousand sqft house into a much larger place - the smaller house almost had more bookshelf wallspace than the new house just because of the way walls were arrange.
No, no, no, no, no
It's okay to do
You just have to identify the correct sacrificial window(s)
You have many windows, much light, and many views
So find a corner to turn into a burrow and line it with books
... Easy for me
It was the one the assholes in 1894 built a house in front of, six feet away
We have done that in our bedroom, because the glass door across from the door of the bed was unused and very annoying.
In the living room we have the double whammy of nice picture windows and rough stone walls (very 70s) that bookcases don’t sit flush against. Still haven’t quite figured that out.
I see these skeets as I glue up three new cabinets in my basement. My kitchen is painfully devoid of drawer space!
If you guys were close I'd lend my shop space to the cause of book cases.
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I have become a more of a fan of hallways and doors than I would ever have thought because of trying to be quiet for others, or, hearing the TV when someone is NOT trying to be
The other half has a beautiful open plan house and sound bouncing around on hard surfaces.
With resultant disputes over tv and video game noise, and guitar practice locations.
I love doors, hallways, and enough private space for all
But "never get rid of the books" used to be my mantra. Thankfully, we kept the TTRPG books, because we got back into it.
- Bring us the books on Buying Days, we'll tell you want we want to buy and give back the rest
- Bring us the books any time, we might give you some credit, but you're really buying space in your own bookshelves,
you won't get the rest back.
I do not have access to your floorplan to make doomed suggestions.
It's okay to do
You just have to identify the correct sacrificial window(s)
You have many windows, much light, and many views
So find a corner to turn into a burrow and line it with books
... Easy for me
It was the one the assholes in 1894 built a house in front of, six feet away
In the living room we have the double whammy of nice picture windows and rough stone walls (very 70s) that bookcases don’t sit flush against. Still haven’t quite figured that out.
If you guys were close I'd lend my shop space to the cause of book cases.