Home library | Inspiration

There’s something incredibly special about having a home library. When I was growing up, my family didn’t have an entire room dedicated to books, but there was a whole wall in my dad’s office boasting tall bookshelves! The book collection is substantial, but it was absolutely huge – endless – to my small mind. I sometimes wonder if that sparked the “learning bug” in little me. I used to sit on the floor in front of the towering shelves, gaping up at beautiful books – new ones, old ones, middle-aged ones… 🙂 I’d pull down one of my grandpa’s psychology books and curl up with it for an afternoon; another day, I’d page through the pictures of a book on raising houseplants or relish a couple pages of a Bible commentary. 🙂

It’s pretty inspiring as a child to see books on countless, interesting topics on your parents’ shelves, proving that we all like to learn and we all have such diverse tastes! I think this culture affected me deeply as I grew up.

Bjorn and I love to go on what we call house-dreaming dates, like I’ve mentioned before. This season of our marriage is a special one; we’re in the dreaming and brainstorming stages now, but will someday be in the detailed planning stage!

One of the things we know we’d like to have for sure is a library in our home. We want to facilitate lifelong learning (and even just the love of reading) in our future home. Last summer in Virginia, we had the opportunity to tour some stunning, historic homes – and we left just drooling over their beautiful, expansive home libraries.

Some of our further inspiration pics:

If you’re anything like me, these pictures just make you want to curl up with a book (or 5) and tea and a blanket and just read. All. Day. Long.

What about you? Do you have (or dream of having) a home library? Would you dedicate an entire room to books? What elements do you love about these special rooms?