nooks FOR BOOKS

Even after the renovation, the house is only about 2,000 square feet. But the owner has 3,700 books! Look closely and you’ll see them—not only on built-in bookcases, but also tucked into nooks carved out of the walls. Once a professional bookseller, Jane Ackerman takes her collection very seriously. “There are bookcases in every room of the house, including the bathrooms,” she says. Volumes are arranged room by room, by genre: fiction (alphabetized by author) in the living room, biography in the master bedroom, children’s books in the guest room, gardening in the back hall, and so forth. “I put them all in a database because I would think I had a certain book, but then I couldn’t put my hands on it. It was driving me nuts.”

Finding space for so many books in a modest-size house with knee-walled ceilings upstairs was a real challenge—and a design directive from the get-go. In fact, the many floor-to-ceiling bookcases in the living room went in before the Smith & Vansant team came on the scene. Cookbooks are stowed on open shelving in the kitchen, and another floor-to-ceiling bookshelf flanks the dining area. Bookcases furnish the powder room and guest bath and can be found at the bottom of the main staircase. But the pièce de résistance is the bookshelf over a radiator in the guest room.

Not only does it conceal the radiator, but it also separates the sleeping area from the stair landing and studio beyond.

ABOVE Book nooks are even cut into walls. The owner fashioned the powder-room mirror from an old snowshoe. The soap dish/glass holder is a salvage find. BELOW The guest-room bookcase, part of a radiator cabinet, lends privacy as a room divider.