Home Library Shelves in Our Living Room

Check out our home library shelves that we built in our living room. This is such a cozy spot in our home to showcase our books. Not only is it really practical, but it has become a statement area in the main living area too.

Home Library Shelves in Our Living Room

My husband made my dream come true by building beautiful shelves in our living room for our home library. I have been slowly growing my collection since Sergi and I got married in 2006. I hope that someday my library will be even bigger, but for now, this is a great start.

This was a project we had planned on ever since we bought this house in 2014. We finally worked our way up the “Home Projects” to do list to get this one checked off in 2018.

So many of you regularly ask me questions about these shelves when I shared them on my Instagram stories. I asked Sergi all your questions, since he did all the work, and put together this post. I hope it will be a useful for anyone of you who want to install similar shelves in your home.

Supplies Used For DIY Home Library Shelves:

Our living room wall is 10’2″ wide, so Sergi bought 10 inch long, 2 inch thick, boards at Lowe’s. They were already 10 ft wide, so they were the perfect size and he didn’t need to saw anything off. The boards that he chose were a Southern yellow pine.

Buying wood for DIY home library shelves

To make sure the boards are as straight as possible, pick them up and look at them closely. Some of them can be uneven.

He sanded each of the boards and stained them using this stain. He simply rubbed the stain into the boards and let them dry. Then he wiped them clean with a dry cloth.

Supplies used for DIY home library shelves.

He installed these brackets that we found on Amazon – Decko Heavy Duty Shelf Brackets. We bought the 10.5 inch x 7.5 inch size.*

He found studs in our wall to secure the boards and the brackets solidly to the wall. He used quite a few of them to make sure that the shelves were as secure as possible. It was important since they would be holding a lot of weight; books are really heavy.

Installing brackets into the wall for diy home library shelves

We also decided to paint the bookshelf wall a darker shade of gray than our lighter color gray living room. It really makes it stand out even more and be more of a feature wall. You can see the contrast of the colors well in the picture above. It’s hard to portray the true colors and how they look in person through a photograph.

It was quite the transformation and worth the work and the wait.

Home lIbrary shelves in living room

We had been using our bookshelves that we had from our apartment days. They were too short and small for that space, and didn’t have nearly enough room for all our books. It’s so satisfying when you finally complete a long awaited home project, right?

A “Before” picture that was taken during Nathaniel’s baby shower.

In 2022, we did another remodeling project. This time, it included tearing down the wall that was right next to the home library. It opened up our main living area even more and makes it look so much more spacious. I shared more about this project in this video and blog post.

We also put in new floors in the entire house and we are so happy with them. They are so much less maintenance than the ones we had before.

Home library in our living room

This was our living room in 2018 (above), when my husband first built the library shelves.

After the renovation in 2022 (below), this is what our living room and home library look today.

home library in living room

Our Books

I actually stopped buying new books about 10 years ago. Today, I buy new books only if it’s an author I really love and want to support. I borrow books from the library or a friend and if I love the book enough to re-read it in the future, then I will buy it for our collection. Otherwise, it’s easy to spend way too much money than I am comfortable with on books:). Besides, many of them I won’t reread, or never finish because they were just meh….

All the books in our home library are like old friends. Every year, I add a few more wonderful additions that I fell in love with throughout the year. I share some of those book recommendation on my Instagram stories. Semi-regularly, I also update book recommendations on my Amazon page. I have one for Fiction Books, Nonfiction Books , Children’s Books and some in Homeschool Favorites too.

DIY Home Library Shelves

*Some of these products may be affiliate links. This simply means when I recommend a product or service I may get a small referral commission. Of course, this is at no extra cost to you. I really appreciate your support. Thank you!

9 Comments

  • Ruth Weaver

    Hello, Olga! I’ve been reading your blog for a year or 2 now and especially appreciate your desire to glorify God through the story of your life and as a stay-a-home mom. One reason I like your cooking blog is that you write simply without embellishing how “absolutely AMAZING, fantastic, etc, etc.” your recipe is. I also enjoy reading about your Ukrainian culture and family. It would be interesting to hear the stories of your family before they emigrated. (I assume they may have moved here at least partly because of religious persecution.) I love reading as well and love book recommendations. I tried to decipher the titles of the books on your bookshelf. 🙂 I noticed your have a copy of the book “Chester the Rooster” published by Christian Light Publications. That series of books is a favorite of our family as well. (We have 9 children.) A number of my friends and people from our church work at CLP and know the artist. I am curious where you
    picked up your copy. 🙂 God bless you as serve Him from your home! Ruth

    • olgak7

      Hello Ruth! Thank you so much for the kind words.
      I bought the book, “Chester the Rooster” online a few years ago. I am familiar with Christian Light Publications and enjoy their books. That is so awesome that you have family and friends that work there.

  • Inga

    Olga, wonderful post. This has given me an idea….off to show the husband 😉

    Wishing you the best in your busy super mama-wife-nurse-blogger life.

  • Lena

    Olga! I just stumbled on this post. Love your shelves, they are so beautiful and functional. You have such an amazing family. Love your website and the recipes!
    I thought it was cool that you have Pinsk book on your shelf. I have the same book! That’s my hometown!

  • Marina

    Hello Olga, I loved the list of recommended books you initially posted on your story some time ago. I’ve been trying to order some book off your recommendation list on Pinterest, but the link doesn’t seem to work. Could you please check on it?

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.