Room of the Day: A Novel Focal Point for the E-Reader Age

For the past few years, e-books have outsold print books. Since reading materials have migrated to the screen, some people are finding that they don’t need as much shelf space as they once did.

That’s the problem Houston interior designer Sally Wheat’s clients were facing. They were young newlyweds who had just moved to Texas from New York City, and they had taken up residence in a house built in 1980, when the iPad wasn’t yet a glimmer in Steve Jobs’ eye and a fire meant burning logs, not an Amazon e-reader. Wheat came up with a novel answer.

In the living room, the couple had long shelves and nothing to put on them. “They do have books,” says Wheat. “They just didn’t want to store them in the living room.” Displaying tchotchkes was a less-than-attractive option for the designer. “One of my pet peeves is little things lined up on shelves,” she says. So Wheat sent her client to a store in Houston that sells boxes of used books for $10. “I told her to buy several boxes and not to worry about what was in them,” Wheat says. “They don’t let you know what you are getting anyway — you just get whatever books they put in the box.”


Meanwhile, the designer had the walls and cabinets painted white and the backs of the shelves painted a dark gray. “Before, everything was the color of masking tape,” she says.

The books were unpacked and grouped by color, then the designer arranged them in vertical bands to make something of an art installation. “It looks like waves,” she says. “It’s a fun way to dress up shelves.”

A new light fixture by Jonathan Adler replaced a ceiling fan and adds sparkle and light to the room, and X-stools in front of the fireplace provide extra seating during parties. A coffee table crafted from rustic wood and metal adds a modern note to the traditional architecture. “We wanted to blend contemporary with the classic to make it a better fit for the young couple,” says Wheat.


Acknowledging that the shelves could have been remodeled away, Wheat says she chose the most practical route. “Before I advise my clients to spend a lot of money, I try to work with what they have,” she says. “In this case we were able to make what they had a design element.”

URL: Room of the Day: A Novel Focal Point for the E-Reader Age http://www.decor-ideas.org/cases-view-id-23264.html