“Tim’s books will fall one day and kill one of his friends.” Click on image to see the photo’s Flickr tags. Courtesy my friends Jonathan and Tim.

“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”

~Anna Quindlen, “Enough Bookshelves,” New York Times, 7 August 1991. This room is in Mildred’s Lane, the Pennsylvania artist’s colony that J. Morgan Puett and partner built over many years. Thanks to kellylynnwaters for the photo, which is originally from J. Morgan Puett via pjb.

I’m mesmerized by this door photo by Anna Dorfman-Stark, whose Door Sixteen is one of my favourite blogs. This amazing doorway is in New York City, and I’m probably going to think of it as “door sixteen” from now on. Anna is a book cover designer, so I’m not surprised she loves these doors – double doors always look like a bookcover to me. These are reminiscent of my all-time favourite book covers – the Die Farbe cover below, and the beautiful Brian Wildsmith illustrations of my childhood (click below to see more examples by Wildsmith). More people with solid slab doors should try something like this! Thanks to Anna for permission to use this photo (and to d.sharp for the photo of the “die farbe” book). You might also want to take a look at Anna’s excellent Flickr stream. See another photo of this door here.

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In case you haven’t already see the entire amazing archive, it’s by Bokhyller via Preik.

These staggered, airy midcentury modern arrangements are so much less chichi than the many fancified contemporary bookshelves we see around. For some reason we love this simple, balanced living room belonging to Italian architect Egle Amaldi in the 1960s. The bookshelf – its shape and the way it spans the whole width – is probably the key to the room. It is somewhat reminiscent of Cado shelving, named after Danish designer Poul Cadovius, even though its shelves are longer and it’s missing the characteristic cabinets and other boxy components. (See an excellent example at kitkadesign and below.) Its verticals are visually interesting and objects look particularly good on the syncopated horizontal levels. How hard would this be to DIY? Probably not that hard. More photos of this type of bookcase in the book “The Modern Room” which also features work by Amaldi. People say that the contemporary versions of these are RAKKS and ISS, but we like the simplicity of the one above. Some DIY ideas for Cado shelving and “pole” shelving (where the supports are poles fixed to ceiling and floor, rather than wall-mounted) can be found on the Pole Shelving blog. If you’re in Vancouver, there are a couple of Cado-style units at the moment at Fabulous Finds.

Below, more classic Cado shelving from Flickr.

A ketchup bottle on the stereo speaker really completes a pad. In the Sixties, it’s a new kind of baroque. Ketchup aside, the wall-mounted amp is genius, and the wall painted in four colour blocks is great. Photo is from The Practical Encyclopedia of Good Decorating and Home Improvement, Greystone Press, 1970. Click here to see the whole page with original caption. This set of encyclopedias is an incredible source for retro DIY ideas and often far-fetched photos that we haven’t seen anywhere else. It’s part of Sarah’s most excellent collection of retro decor books. You can get a whole set of these encyclopedias for yourself on abebooks.