Decorating with books can be a fun, cheap and creative way to add personal touches to your home. Look at a pile of books and what do you see? Different sizes, colors and even textures depending on whether they are hardbacks or paperbacks, cloth or leather. They are readily available to create interesting accents to your interiors.

Most people store books in a bookcase, but how you place them on the shelves can create a completely different affect on the space.

• Mix and match them for a carefree informal feel. To create a more traditional look, only display those with leather or hardback binders or arrange your books all to one height.
• Break up the monotony of books lined up in a row by stacking some on their sides. Add something decorative like a glass bowl or photo frame on top.
• Consider whether you want the books to face in or out. If you like to read titles, then naturally you would place them outwards, but if that’s of no consequence, then turn them around and enjoy the textural affect of the pages.

If you tire of the typical freestanding bookcase or built-ins flanking a fireplace, then look to create new architectural elements with your books.

• Fill an entire room with floor to ceiling shelves, much like an English home library.
• Display them around and over the top of a doorway, under a window seat or at the end of a kitchen island.

Incorporate books as interesting furniture pieces in your rooms.

• Place a bookcase at the head of your bed and use it as a simple headboard with quick access to nighttime reading.
• Stack large heavy books on top of each other and then top with glass to create a table. Turn the books in different directions to create decorative angles.
• Tear up old books you don’t care about and use the pages to decoupage your kitchen cabinets or the inside of a dresser drawer.
• Find some favorite old classics at a junk store and drill a hole through the middle of each book to create your own custom lamp, using a lamp kit.

For a quick, simple idea, use a few chosen books to decorate your tabletops.

• Set out your favorite hardbacks on a coffee table for family and friends to read. Rotate with new titles once a month.
• Create vignettes by placing a treasured book on an open stand and then place some decorative objects that relate to it on the same table. For example, set out a model train engine next to a book about trains or a bowl of seashells next to a book about lighthouses.

Because books are already in your home, use them to make creative statements in your rooms. It’s fun and cheap on the decorating budget.