Bookcases & Shelving

Is There a Difference Between a Bookcase and a Bookshelf

In everyday use the words are swapped freely, but the difference is real and it changes what you have to buy alongside the unit. A bookcase is enclosed by sides and usually a back, so a row of books leans against a panel and stays upright on its own. A bookshelf can be open on every side or fixed to a wall, which looks lighter and leaves books to fall over. If you are buying open shelving, budget for bookends in the same order, because that is the purchase people make a week later. A back panel does one more thing worth knowing: it stops the frame twisting out of square over the years.

Should You Put One in the Living Room

A living room shelf is looked at from a sofa rather than walked past, which puts the middle two shelves at seated eye level and turns them into the display. Everything above and below is storage nobody studies. Fill the top and bottom with the things you actually need to keep, and leave the two middle shelves lighter than feels natural, because a wall of solid spines reads as clutter from six feet away. A unit that ends below the window line keeps the room feeling open; one that runs past it divides the wall.

Open Shelving or Doors

Doors hide the contents and collect dust on the outside, where a cloth reaches. Open shelving shows the contents and collects dust on every surface and on the objects themselves, which is a much longer job. Doors also add visual weight, so a doored unit reads as furniture while an open one reads as structure. Choose doors for anything you would rather not look at daily, and open shelving where the contents are part of the room. A unit that offers both, closed at the base and open above, is the arrangement that suits most rooms.

For drawer storage rather than shelving, and for the anchoring hardware that tall units ship with, see Dressers & Storage. The mirrors and wall art that finish the same wall are in Home Accents.