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Living Room Bookcase Storage Design Photos and Ideas

SHED replaced the drafty windows with tall sliding glass doors to connect to the deck. The Acre Lounge Chairs and Turn Tall Side Table are both by Blu Dot.
Woud’s modular sofa provides a vibrant accent color used elsewhere in the house and ADU. The striped club chair is from Ferm Living; the Eames chair and ottoman were among the only things the couple brought with them from Colorado. The knot cushions are by Design House Stockholm, and the prints are by Cornelia Thomsen.
Architect Fareez Giga deploys a suite of custom built-ins to upgrade a 715-square-foot flat for a bibliophile and a passionate cook.
All the new built-in cabinetry floats a few inches off the ground and below the ceiling, adding light and shadow, so as not to make the 715-square-foot apartment feel confining.
"The kids love playing and singing and I have this principle that if things aren't visible or easy to get, you won't use them. For them to play, their toys need to be visible, or if we want to cook, the food has to be visible."
The couple added the wainscot, installed by Seamus, and painted in Farrow & Ball Red Earth to continue the “color story” from the breakfast room. The white oak built-in has much needed storage behind the cane cabinet fronts and display. The Caitlin couch by Everygirl for Interior Define sits atop a vintage checkered rug with an Anthropologie coffee table and Hay Paper Shade overhead.
Windowsills were extended to do double-duty, and also function as bookshelves.
Oiled birch veneer lines the entire interior. Instead of the staircase, a ladder leads up to the loft where a skylight brings more light into the home. Situated on either side of the bathroom entry, closets make up for the storage lost by removing the stair.
The renovated living room gave the space a splash of white, icluding a fireplace makeover, but retained the original red oak floors.
The original tongue-and-groove ceiling can still be seen in the living room, where an eclectic mix of furniture, including a Ligne Roset Togo, chair creates a laid-back ambiance.
Library; brass starburst ceiling light fixture brings a sense of ‘20s era glamour. Vintage sofa by Gerard van den Berg.
Rossi did not carry the dividing wall between the bedroom and living room all the way up to the ceiling, so as not to break up the treatment up there, instead designing the wall as a custom storage and display unit.
Living room
The double-height wall of windows in the living room looks out on the property and was a big draw on their first walk-through.
The designer’s brother, Václav Valda, carved the cabinets for the container house using a milling cutter.
With the bed and desk tucked away, there’s more room to move about in the shipping container.
Sometimes all it takes is a little luck. For a young married couple, it came in the form of this rare find: a 19th-century, three-story, single-family home in the heart of Paris. The building was a charmer with good bones, but was in need of some serious care. In a vibrant retrofit by architect Pierre-Louis Gerlier that includes structural reinforcements, the reimagined design is set off with a new floor plan. The lower level now serves as a space for the couple’s children, with the public areas—including an open-plan living/dining room and kitchen—on the floor above. Upstairs, the attic has been transformed into a very large primary bedroom with a green-and-white bathroom suite. The living room (pictured) showcases the firm’s bespoke carpentry work with a beautiful, mossy-green built-in bookcase that frames a new fireplace, and a staircase surrounded by arched doorways that hold hidden storage. “We created visual breakthroughs in order to connect the different spaces,” says Gerlier. “The rounded arches are there to help magnify these moments.”
In 2009 on a quiet Los Angeles corner, Mel Elias found a severely water-damaged, crumbling 5,000-square-foot house hidden behind a tangle of overgrown vegetation. Its former owner, the late Hollywood acting coach Milton Katselas, had filled his property with industrial skylights and enormous, wood-burning fireplaces. The glass-and-concrete construction was framed by high ceilings, rusted steel beams, and varied elevations across the single-story plan. Thanks to an 11-year long, multiphase renovation by designer Carter Bradley, the home—with all of its quirks and character—shines again.
Berube introduced the owners to Jan Kath rugs when they couldn't find vintage carpets they liked. It was love at first sight. "I've been waiting my whole life to find these,
Berube's starting point was the continuous wall of black millwork clad in a solid matte surface by Fenix. "We decided on a dark palette to work with the exterior,
Designer Ralph Germann inserted a partially glazed box into a 19th-century barn to form the main living space of Christine Bonvin’s home in Switzerland. Soft light enters through original arrow-loop windows.
Foldable furniture helps save space in the small house.
Joshua drew inspiration from the storage cubbies on ships for the shipping container home’s cabinetry.
The design team sprayed the metal structure’s inner walls with thermal insulation. Then they framed the interior with studs and clad it in spruce plywood.
Living Room
On the second level, the design team arranged a living area that opens to a balcony and deck area. The built-in wall storage is crafted from oak.
A collaboration between YUN Architecture and interior designer Penelope August, a renovated, 19th-century townhouse with landmark status used to be an egg and poultry distributor. Now virtually unrecognizable, the parlor floor is the home's open-plan living area. A formerly defunct fireplace was reactivated and clad with a custom-made, limestone mantle.
On one side of the house, a white central staircase leads to a split-level landing the Robertsons call "the reading room." "We needed a place to hang out and for the kids to read," explains owner Vivi Nguyen-Robertson. Awaiting the birth of the couple's son, she relaxes in a built-in reading nook in the library.
“The main living spaces, flowing from the central courtyard, fold down with the stepped concrete floor,” says Fox. “Plywood joinery and an off-form concrete ceiling anchor and harmonize.”
"I always knew there had to be a sight line from the living room to the kitchen, all the way to the back of the house," says Alex. "That really opened up everything [like], ‘Oh, yeah, this is the way it's supposed to be.’"
Floor-to-ceiling shelves and storage bookend a cabinet that conceals the television.
The pair replaced the cluttered firewood storage with a floating hearth that can double as a seat and display for art.
Raj and Watts extended the fireplace column to the ceiling to highlight the room’s expansive scale, and had it coated in concrete plaster. It was important to retain the wood-burning fireplace—a rarity in the city—but “we wanted to re-clad it in a material that also spoke to the industrial past of the building,” says Raj.
The newly built living room opens to the courtyard and connects the front and rear wings of the home. The floor is exposed concrete with a sustainable fly-ash mix.
Zachary designed a new cabinet in walnut to anchor the room. The wood tones are a warm counterpoint to the butter-yellow sofa. The coffee table belonged to the owners.
The Curved Back sofa is from Lawson-Fenning. “It’s the most comfortable sofa,” says Zachary. “I have one, too.”
Chen designed circular copper bases for the Bluestone to create a coffee table with gravitas. The light is the Artemide Aggregato ceiling light with a counterweight.
In this library, a Grant sleeper sofa by Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams is paired with a Cigar wall sconce by George Nelson.
Having spent more time at home in recent months, Nina and her family are truly experiencing the "essence" of her design, she says. Their library corner, a space that was once underused, has become a place of respite for the family where they can gather on the Nanimarquina Rangoli rug and listen to records.
Removing the hallway created room for a cozy family room upstairs. The family is enjoying the nesting process since the remodel was completed in 2017. "We are raising our kid here, learning how to cook, and I even started to do a lot of working from home here even before the pandemic," says Martin. "We hop from one place to the other, making minor changes and making them our favorite for some time. We spent lots of nights here."
"The clients really didn't want the TV to be the main feature of the living room, so we designed the piece with sliding panels to give the flexibility to hide the TV and reveal a bookshelf in the closed position," explains Peake.
The home was gutted in the remodel, and the living spaces were oriented to take better advantage of the existing window plan.
Now, the kitchen sits at the front of the building, and the counter runs beneath the preserved windows. Built-in shelves frame the view.
From the start, the clients wanted their home to have a "barn look," honoring the agrarian vernacular of the built environment around them. Interior walls and ceilings are clad in local pine, with a paint treatment to remove the yellow from the wood.
Astrain updated the fireplace with a Carrara marble Victorian fireplace surround from The Architectural Forum.
Astrain streamlined the storage in the room, making room for wall art and allowing light to be diffused throughout.
To help create the illusion of more spaces, the great room features a vaulted ceiling and opens up to the outdoors with 12-foot wall-to-wall glazed sliding doors.
The artwork is titled "Crashing Buffalo" and is by Tucson/Los Angeles artist Ishi Glinsky.
The Adrian Pearsall sofa was sourced from The Swanky Abode on 1st Dibs, and the fire tools are also from the Sunshine Shop, a local vintage store.
The entry between the living room and dining room was widened.
The custom-designed white maple modular coffee table can be kept together as one piece, or separated to form stools or smaller tables. "Each of the four cubes is slightly different, with a storage recess or dividing panel for stowing books, magazines, pillows, or other objects," says Thomas.
The living room received a Muuto Connect sofa, which was "notched into" the custom media cabinetry. The existing wood floors were refinished with an ebony satin stain with a charcoal tone.
Custom metal shelves display books. The flooring throughout is white oak, and its color syncs nicely with the tones in the brick—inside and out.
Two dividing orange bulkheads—which are the box gutters that protrudes through the house—separate the three pavilions. The family congregates in the central pavilion for meals around the dining table, and to relax in the lounge.
The project team excavated a portion of the backyard to create a sunken patio that seamlessly meets the grade of the interior living spaces. The interior flooring is large-scale honed basalt tile (24" x 48" in size), which becomes 24" x 48" flamed basalt tile at the exterior patio.
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