Two weeks ago I invited some friends over. They went into the living room, while I stayed in the kitchen. Suddenly, one of them came up to me and said (with an indignant face): “Hey, can you tell me why you have all your books upside down? Have you lost your mind? I saw that you have the entire Caballo de Troya collection and a Spanish grammar book.”
To which I replied, “Do you think if I had them on with the back facing out you would have gone to see them?”.
His face was a poem!
Obviously, this is one of my personal reasons for doing so, but is it really important to turn them upside down? Are we all interior designers crazy? Why this trend?
Important or not…
It is something that is the order of the day. Just look at the photos on Instagram (
#backwardsbooks
) to realize that something is happening, folks.
And, if so many people do, are they all wrong? This may sound like the famous “if everyone else is jumping off a bridge, are you jumping off a bridge?” And the truth is that no, it is not necessary. You are free to decide whether to jump in or not; or, in a less suicidal way, whether to join the trend or not.
So are all interior designers crazy?
The vast majority of them do, let’s face it. Or at least something happens to them, because as they usually tell me “you do very strange things” (haha).
Joking aside, it is normal that in order to know if it is necessary to jump off a bridge, you should first ask yourself this question (lest you suddenly find yourself turning your house upside down in order to follow a gang of crazy people).
But one example of people who have dared to listen to them is the
influencers
(o
celebrities
), who have not been slow to join this movement or to include a view of their living room or bookshelf in the famous
house tours
.
María Santos Studio.
Perhaps not so much because of the madness of the interior designers, but rather because of the motives they had for creating a trend that was, to say the least, revolutionary in terms of aesthetics and organization.
But why this trend?
I’m sure you’ve heard that ” black is not a color”. And the same with white. But is the white of the leaves always identical? Are the pages of one book as white as those of another?
Come on, you’re looking forward to it, flip a couple of books.
Indeed. Neither the color, grammage nor thickness are the same.
On the other hand, white or black are part of what are known as neutral tones (i.e. they do not compete with each other). And that is precisely why this trend offers so many aesthetic possibilities in terms of chromatic variety.
Let me explain. The different shades of white (more yellow, more beige, more brown…) give you other options when designing your shelf(how many whites do you know?).
Unless you’re one of the crazy interior group and have them on repeat, all the books are different and so are their spines. And sometimes, when you put them together, they don’t fit together at all, or they attract attention in a space much more than you would like: too many colors, different typographies, etc.
But, as I said before, it’s up to you to decide whether to jump in the pool or not. Taking advantage of these handicaps
handicaps
also brings certain design advantages, such as making a home more welcoming, giving personality to your space or adding touches of color.
Turning books up side down will give you more harmony and many design options.
What do I think?
Well, although it’s a lot of fun, each space needs to be treated differently. It depends on the decor you have (and the books, of course), what you want to achieve in the space, and the shelving. But, above all, how you want to feel in that space.
If you’re looking to design a purposeful space, read my section on House Coaching™.
