Shabby Chic Bookcases
Buy the best shabby chic bookcases selected and recommended by interior designers. By Chloe Hughes.
A lovely furniture piece to add to your office, living room, or nursery is a shabby chic bookcase. Bookshelves in the shabby chic style can elevate your room and give you a place to store your favorite stories. Chic bookcases with cubby holes can hold floral décor items in every other cubby. While tall bookcases can hold twice as many books for those who own a lot of books.
Shabby Chic Bookcases
Buying Guide
Chloe Hughes
Interior Design Expert
Chloe is a highly-regarded expert in all things vintage and antique. She’s excited to share her vast knowledge with readers and clients wishing to infuse their homes with a mixture of old-time warmth and modern comfort. In addition to her design work, Chloe regularly volunteers at her local community center, teaching DIY projects to adults and kids.
For those who didn't believe it's possible to make a statement with a bookcase, they haven't seen shabby chic bookcases. The books we collect say a lot about our personalities. Therefore, why not put them on display on something that's dripping with personality? These bookcases evoke cottage style in combination with rustic and weathered beauty. However, you don't have to limit yourself to placing these pieces in those style rooms. We've put together this buying guide to help inspire you.
What is shabby chic design?
When designers use pastel colors that mix with antique furnishing, lace, florals, vintage, and country accents, this creates a shabby chic design. The beauty of these dreamy and soft styles is they're simple and affordable to create.
These bookcases are a beautiful addition to bedrooms, the corner of dining rooms, and in living rooms. Because they can feature more than books, they work well as a way of showcasing dishes, pottery, plants, artwork, and other decorative elements. Mixing and matching this style of the bookcase with other design options works successfully thanks to their painted surface and decorative elements. For example, a shabby chic bookcase is a beautiful addition to a modern style room as a way of preventing it from appearing too cluttered or overwhelming.
The addition of shabby chic bookcases helps pull a room together to create romantic styles. Some of these bookcases feature high arches, drawers on the bottom, and pedestal legs. Their features are reminiscent of the vintage quality you would find in antique store furniture. One element you'll see common in most pieces is wood carvings and other ornamental accents. Under most circumstances, these bookcases feature beige, white, cream, or pastel paint finishes.
These bookcases feature a solid construction most often of pine or hardwood. Those that have a pine construction will be softer and more prone to dings and scratches. However, their painted surfaces will help offer protection from those occurrences. These bookcases typically have a myriad of elements including drawers, doors, and accents. When in combination with each other and if the construction is hardwood, it creates a heavy piece of furniture.
You’ll find when shopping for these bookcases that the standard depth is twelve inches deep. However, the widths will vary considerably. The same is true regarding the height of the bookcase. Each of these factors will depend on the number of shelves you’re looking for as well as the specific style. Think about if you would also like the shelves to be adjustable.
You’ll also need to look at the amount of space you have available in the room. Do you want the bookcase to go behind another piece of furniture? Is it going to fill negative space along a wall? Would you like it to go in a corner? Answering these questions will help you determine the measurements and use of the bookcase.