But, to make myself look a little better, here’s what it looked like before I made the above attempt to organize and style the bookcase.

I guess it looked neater, but very bare and boring at the same time.  When I rearranged everything after looking at this boring arrangement for far too long I tried doing what designers suggest – mixing in art/accessories, stacking books in different directions, and creating groupings of interesting pieces.  However, I think I failed, but not because I have no style (which I suppose is still debatable), but because the books themselves are just too colorful which makes any groupings and stylings seem cluttered and distracting.

As soon as I walk into my room, my eyes are immediately drawn to the bookcase, not to my bedding, the art above my bed, the huge window in my room, or any of the other more positive aspects of the room.  Most of the books are young adult fiction that I read in high school (hence the girly colors) and the accessories are random pieces that didn’t fit anywhere else which were given to me, made by me in high school that I can’t throw out, or precious gifts from San.  In the first photo, the middle shelf is dedicated to all things boyfriend, and as much as I hate to shove these items off the bookshelf, I have to do something because they don’t match and add nothing to the bookcase as they are now.

Because my room is my only space in my parent’s house, it has many functions, but I don’t want one of the functions to be a dumping ground of things that don’t make it look pretty.  I still want to hold the books, but in a different way while also adding lots of interest and cohesion to the rest of the room.

There is hope for this bookcase, however, because yesterday I dedicated a whole day of thrift/bargain shopping to sprucing up this cluttered bookcase into something that fits with the rest of the room and adds a design quality of its own instead of sucking the life out of all the pretty decorations the room already offers.  I hope to have the big reveal on Friday, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, I would love to see what your suggestions are when decorating bookcases or if you want to take a stab at it, what I could do with this specific bookcase.

This post is a part of the Decorating Dilemmas Party over at Serenity Now.