The Sixth House Before and After: The Library

Last week I started the before and after posts of my house with my front entry. I designed the full house renovation of my family's sixth house before we even closed on the house. We moved in almost five years ago, in August 2020. I made revisions along the way as we lived here to both save money and adapt to the way we were living in the house. My husband and I did a lot of the work ourselves over those years and in January 2024 a builder implemented my designs in the kitchen and upstairs hall bathroom, along with a few other modifications here and there. We have completed every space with the exception of the master bathroom. I'm not sure when that project will start. No time soon, that's for sure!

When I was growing up we always had a library in our houses. My mom was an avid Sunday New York Times crossword and acrostic puzzler. Her vast collection of books included every classic and reference book there was and she knew just which one to go to if she was having trouble with a clue. I was always in awe of that, and still am. My mom loved to read and she sure did know how to make a library look beautiful and to make it useful.

Although I am not as well read as my mother, I have definitely carried on the tradition of having a library in my homes. I have also carried with me a large portion of her antique classics book collection. My current house did not have a library when we moved in, it most certainly does now though.

When you enter my house, the library is to your left.

a view of the library

another view of the library

This is what the space looked like when we moved in.

listing photo

This is another view of the room.

view of library from the entry hall

The before at this angle.

listing photo

In the hall, you can see the large opening to the room and a closet that protruded a great deal into the room. Those are both gone now.

entry to library before

To make the library, I wanted to center the cased opening to the room and have the size of the entry match the scale of the other cased openings throughout the first floor. I also wanted to remove the closet because it felt like it took up about a quarter of the potential floor space of the room and hindered all symmetry in the space. Lastly, I wanted to add a cased opening between the library and the room behind it to remove the dead-end feelings of those rooms, thus adding flow and additional natural light. The sun streams in through the back of the house for the entire day and not at all into the library's front facing window.

First things first, we had to see what was hidden within the wall between the two rooms:

examining what lurked behind the wall

hvac servicing the bedrooms upstairs

All of the duct work for the heating, air conditioning, and return air for the three "kid's" bedrooms was in the wall. So, we got ready to do some demo.

getting ready for demo

And took everything down to the studs.

down to the studs

We took out the closet, hallelujah!

goodbye closet!

Then we moved the duct work. Initially, I wanted the opening to be centered in the room behind the library. To move as little duct work as possible though, we moved the opening slightly and ended up only having to change the duct work and return air for the bedroom directly above the library. This was a big cost and labor savings. Worth the slightly off-center doorway.

hello new entries

all framed in

Initially, I had designed custom millwork for the shelving and in the end we decided to forgo that to save some money. We paneled the walls to add some character/dimension to the room, and painted everything, including the ceiling, the same high gloss shade. (Benjamin Moore Brewster Gray)

library paneling installation begins

paneling underway

Here is the finished product! This is the opening we added to the room behind the library. It makes a huge difference to the overall feel of the entire house.

view from library into the now adjoining room

A view of both entryways to the library.

a look at both entries

A close up of this reading corner.

have a seat

The shelving is from CB2. I love the way it looks, especially with the paneling behind it and it gives the illusion of being custom built because of the way it fits into the room. It just so happened that two shelves fit perfectly to the right of the window and I adjusted the placement of the opening to the room from the front hall to accommodate two shelves to the left of the window and another that turns the corner towards the entry to wrap that wall. So, both entryways to the library are slightly off center and I think it's the better for it. It's all in the details! And my husband's installation abilities!

The rug is sisal from SisalCarpet.com and is made for wall to wall installation. I love it. Everything else in the room has been with us for several homes now.

This is my initial post on designing the library when we first moved in, if you want to check it out!

That closes the book on this library.

Thank you for being here today,

Kerry