How to Eat Sound and Shelve Books

Design Librarian here, with a how-to guide for those with too much noise and too many books.

When I was hired to redesign this space, the only real design briefs were to help suck up as much sound as possible and to house a lot of books.  Apart from the cardboard box collection and a temporary WFH desk, the room was mostly an empty rectangle.  Sound was echoing off all the hard surfaces making zoom calls extra unpleasant.

The client initially proposed one long unit on the wall where the television is now, running into the corner on the window side. This felt very lopsided and off balance to me – very “just ‘cause we can, doesn’t mean that we should” - so we opted to shorten the run slightly and flank both sides with similar layouts, dividing the room into a “desk side” and “tv side”, so that mom can keep tabs on her children and her work simultaneously. The luxury!

I never actually saw the book collection until after the built-ins were installed, I just knew there was a lot, like a lot, of books. I guess that’s one of the side effects of careers in law and medicine. I erred on the side of caution and went as wide and deep as I could go while maintaining a comfortable pathway and allowing access to the adjoining balcony.

In an effort to control the sound, the client enclosed walls, and we supplied two large rugs, several runners, thick wool carpet on the stairs, a few large upholstered pieces, and a handful of pillows.

The overall pallet for the home was originally spring boarded from the existing wallcovering in their foyer. We layered in various shades of blues and greens inspired by their paper and cut it with ochre tones, black, and a warm white for dynamism. We also opted to vary the textures for extra credit – matching is a dirty word – so, we have nubby wool, silk, burnished metals, smooth painted wood, leather, shagreen, grass cloth, stained black wood, marble, and polished brass happily cohabitating.