If you’re the type of person that enjoys building their own furniture we have something special prepared for you today: 33 DIY bookshelf design ideas that have what it takes to stand out and to look professional all while maintaining their unique character and offering the possibility of customization.

These designs are just the right blend of looks and functionality.

Modern DIY Bookshelf Plans to Update Your Home Storage Solutions

1. A Rocket Bookshelf for Your Child’s Bedroom

Let’s start with something fun: a rocket bookshelf that the kids will absolutely love. The design is perfect for a space-themed room and although it looks quite complicated it’s mostly just a matter of getting the measurements and cuts right. You can customize the rocket with your choice of colors. The white and red combo featured on thehandymansdaughter seems like a great option but, of course, this is in the context of that particular room decor.

2. An Industrial-Style Bookcase

Next, an industrial-style bookcase that would look exquisite in spaces such as the living room or the home office. To build something like this you need a few tools to cut and prep the wood and the metal pipes and then to assemble all the pieces. You can adjust the measurements based on your own needs as well as on how much space you want to dedicate to the final products. Check out a full list of supplies and detailed instructions about this project on rogueengineer.

3. A Modern Wood and Metal Bookshelf

If you like the way in which wood and metal complement each other, check out another modern project that takes advantage of that. All the details can be found on homemade-modern. This EP36 ironbound bookcase is small enough to look cute and casual but also strong and sturdy enough to look solid. Of course, you can adjust the dimensions if you want to add more shelves or to make the bookcase wider or taller. There’s also the possibility to have two or more such bookcases for a more modular and flexible interior design.

4. Ladder Shelves for Your Living Room or Office Space

Ladder shelves are pretty easy to build plus they look charming, having this subtle rustic aura that really makes them stand out. The design is also fairly versatile so you shouldn’t have any problems incorporating your new ladder shelves into the existing decor of your living room, bedroom, or office space. Find out more about what it takes to complete such a project on apairandasparediy.

5. A Lightweight and Slim DIY Bookshelf Design

The DIY bookshelf design featured on cinsarah is inspired by ladder shelves but at the same time has its own style and character. It seems like a good fit for a variety of spaces such as the living or dining area, the bedroom or even hallways, entryways, and kitchens. The structure is quite sturdy but at the same time looks lightweight and slender which is a great combination of attributes.

6. Turn Pallet Wood into a Custom Bookcase

Reclaimed pallets are a great resource for all sorts of DIY projects, including bookshelves and shelving units. There’s a lovely tutorial on enwoodhouse which shows you exactly how to turn pallet wood into a custom bookcase with a rustic look and a customizable structure and compartmentalization system. You can always make adjustments to your own design or customize it using your choice of finishes and colors.

7. Repurpose Wood Crates into a Bookshelf

Wood crates can also be repurposed and incorporated into the design of a custom bookcase and that’s actually a great idea when it comes to difficult layouts or cozy and casual reading nooks. You can use as many wine crates as you need or as many as can fit in the space. You can stain them or paint them if you prefer a custom color palette, although they look nice like this too. You can find more details on maisondepax.

8. A Simple DIY Bookcase Made from Metal Pipes and Fittings

If you’re looking for a DIY bookcase design that’s super easy to build, consider a frame made of metal pipes and fittings. It’s super easy to put together and can look very chic, especially if you spray paint the metal either to make it look matte black or to have a metallic copper finish. Moreover, the frame will look beautiful when complemented by wooden shelves. Check out englishmuffinblog for more inspiration.

9. A Minimalist Tree Bookshelf

Another very inspiring DIY bookshelf idea comes from livefreecreative. This is a tree bookshelf with a minimalist design, one which has the potential to look special and beautiful in any room of the house. You can mix and match several of these modules or even improve the design to better suit a large space.

10. A Colorful Bookcase Made From Wooden Crates

Using crates to build a custom bookcase can result in some very interesting and ingenious designs, like for example the one featured on livethemma.ikea. You can see here how multiple crates of different shapes, sizes, and colors can be combined into a modular bookcase.

If you’d like to maintain a modular and flexible structure, instead of permanently gluing the crates together or using screws to secure them to one another, consider some simple binder clips.

11. A Rustic X-Shaped Bookshelf

Many of our favorite DIY bookcase designs have a rustic feel to them, and this bookshelf from Jen Woodhouse is no exception to this. If you are looking to create a really sturdy bookshelf for your home office or living room, this is one of the best DIY projects we’ve seen. Even better, you won’t believe that it will only set you back $75 to create the bookshelf from start to finish. The X-shape design adds a bit more interest to a classic wooden bookshelf, and it will easily fit into a small corner of your home office or dining room.

As well as being a great option for storing books, you’ll find it to be strong enough to add heavy ornaments and other household objects. To finish it off, consider painting your new bookshelf a bold color if you fancy making a bit more of an impact following the completion of this DIY project.

12. A Hanging DIY Bookshelf

We aren’t all lucky enough to have space in our homes to add a huge bookcase, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy taking part in one of these great DIY projects today. This small hanging DIY bookshelf from Burkatron would fit on any small wall space in a home and just uses a strong leather strap to keep it in its place.

If you are new to trying DIY projects, this would be a great one to start with, as it involves very little skill or effort. You’ll just need a length of wood and two leather straps, and you can adjust the measurements of all of these to fit your needs. From there, you’ll need a leather hole punch, two large screw hooks, a drill, and wall plugs, and you’ll have your new wall shelf ready to hang from your wall in no time at all.

13. DIY Spine Bookshelf

fun bookshelf idea with us which barely requires any space in your room to fit it in. It’s a really modern and fun design that will look just like the popular bookshelves you see in high-end stores.

The simple design means it’s an accessible project for first-time DIYers, and it will make your book collection look like a vertical sculpture. You could add this to almost any room in your home, and it will fit in with any type of home décor. When we think of bookshelves, we usually consider adding a wide shelf, but if you are short of space, it’s a wonderful idea to stack your book collection upwards.

14. A Rustic Tree Bookshelf

While we already shared one tree-shaped bookshelf earlier, if you are looking for more of a rustic design, take a look at this great DIY project from Instructables. We love how fun this design is, making it ideal for your child or teenager’s bedroom. They’ll love adding their books to the tree branches, while the shelf barely takes up any space on their wall or floor.

The tree could be painted any color you fancy to match your home décor, but the rustic wood look is our favorite style. The books will be really safe on this bookshelf, so you won’t have to worry about them getting knocked off when your kids are playing at home.

15. A Doll’s House Bookshelf

If your child loves playing with their doll’s house, check out this beautiful bookshelf idea from Simple As That. This design takes an old bookshelf from Wayfair and converts it into a bookshelf and doll’s house for your children to play with. You can use it as either a doll’s house or a bookshelf, but you could also consider mixing and matching the two.

The good thing is that when your daughter grows up and is tired of playing with it, you can just repurpose it to store her books. As you’ll be converting a ready-built bookshelf, this is a great project for beginners, and you’ll love decorating the shelves in a way that matches your child’s personality.

16. A Simple Ladder Bookshelf on a Budget

For anyone who is working with a very tight budget, this idea from Femina will be well worth taking a look at. If you find you have books all over your home but no space to store them, this is a brilliant way to get those books off the floor. All you’ll need is an old wooden ladder, which you’ll then nail horizontally onto the wall.

You can then place your books onto the ladder to create a unique display that will impress anyone who enters your home. Of course, if you are feeling a bit more crafty, consider personalizing this display. You could paint the ladder a fun color or cut the ladder to make smaller sections that you can arrange across the wall for a modern display unit.

17. A Space Saver Bookshelf Which is Hidden Behind a Wall

The space behind the door in most rooms is so often overlooked. If you need to add more storage to your nursery design or child’s bedroom, look at this fun storage idea from Yellow Bliss Road. If you keep finding books all over your home, this space saver bookshelf adds shelving behind your door so that you don’t even have to see the books when the door is open.

They’ll be easily accessible when you do need them before bedtime, but will be well out of the way to avoid cluttering up your child’s bedroom or playroom. You can always paint them a fun color or add stickers to the shelves if you are looking to brighten up the room and add more character to the space.

18. A Classy Fabric Covered Bookshelf

Do you have a boring old bookshelf cluttering up your home? When you don’t want to spend a fortune buying a new bookshelf or don’t have the time to create one from scratch, draw some inspiration from Redoux Interiors. They’ve taken an old bookshelf and completely given it a new lease of life.

You’ll start by painting it the color of your choice with chalk and clay paint before moving onto the inside of the bookshelf. Here, you’ll apply the fabric of your choice to the back behind the shelving, which makes for a sophisticated and unique bookshelf design. This is a fun project for anyone who likes adding a vintage and rustic look to their home and can be completely customized to fit your home decor.

19. DIY Metal Basket Shelving

Rain on a Tin Roof shares a very simple basket shelving idea that’s ideal for dumping piles of books in that are cluttering up your room. It just goes to show that you don’t need to do anything too fancy in order to add bookshelves to your home.

This is a really budget-friendly idea, and you can add as many baskets as you need to help tidy up the mess in your home. If you have a few children, you could even assign them a basket each in order to tidy up their books or other belongings. This is a great idea that could be applied to anywhere in your home and would also be a nice addition to your home entryway.

20. Free Standing DIY Gator Tube Bookshelf

A free-standing bookshelf is a modern and unique way to store books. As well as adding some much-needed storage to your home, you’ll find that it creates a fun decoration to fill a corner of your living room or dining room. Simplified Building takes you through this project step by step, and it’s a great one for anyone who isn’t too confident building a traditional bookshelf.

Another great place you could put this shelf is by your bed, as you could store your favorite books and magazines to enjoy reading in the evening. Once you cut the pipes and paint them, you’ll just need to cut and finish the shelves before assembling everything. The assembly process should only take about twenty minutes, so it’s a pretty quick and easy project.

21. Modular shelving unit made of crates

Wood crates can be super easily repurposed into shelves and when you have several of them together you can create custom and modular units like this one. This cute crate bookcase was made using a total of six rectangular crates. It’s perfect for spaces like a kid’s room because of the proportions and if you want more storage or a bigger unit simply add more crates. Check out the project on hauteandhealthyliving.

22. A customized wooden crate bookcase

As you’ve seen already, building a bookcase out of wooden crates is super easy and a cool thing about it is that you can combine and position the crates however you want in order to create custom configurations and interesting designs. Here for example some of the crates are sitting horizontally while others are positioned vertically. There’s also an odd number of crates which gives this unit an asymmetrical look. Check out the project on lovecreatecelebrate for more details.

23. Sling bookshelf makeover idea

Doesn’t this sling bookshelf look cute? It has a fun and colorful design thanks to the patterned fabric and the metal frame has a nice finish too. But this wasn’t always the case. This is actually an old bookshelf that looked pretty pathetic and was in bad need of a makeover. Check out this inspiring transformation on practicallyfunctional.

24. Farmhouse-inspired bookcase on wheels

This farmhouse-style bookcase sure looks charming and gorgeous and, upon closer inspection, it also becomes apparent that it’s quite easy to build as well. This is something that you can put together yourself from scratch and this particular design can be found on cherishedbliss. What sets it apart is the thin metal strips on the back, the caster wheels and of course this beautiful distressed wood finish.

25. Modern bookshelf with open cubbies

When building your own furniture from scratch you get to pick all the details, including the style. Each style has its own unique particularities to keep in mind. For example, for a modern bookcase try to go with simple and clean lines without complicating the design with little details. A nice example is this modern bookshelf built by Spencley Design Co.

26. A customizable mid-century modern bookcase

One of the limitations some classical bookcases come with is the fact that all the shelves have the same height and the same dimensions which makes it difficult to store and to organize things. In comparison, this beautiful mid-century modern bookcase design shared by Modern Builds is more versatile and diverse and it can also be easily modified and customized.

27. Built-in bedside bookcase

What’s nice about custom-made furniture is that you can design it to fit the exact space and shape available, like a little nook by the bed for example. That’s just what this built-in bookshelf featured on younghouselove is created for. It’s tall and slender, filling this little nook and turning it into a practical space.

28. Bookcase and dresser combo

Another idea worth exploring is combining more than one piece of furniture. For example, place a small bookcase on top of a dresser to create a hybrid and super practical unit that you can use for multiple things. There’s actually two of them here and they’re painted in a bold shade of pink but what really sets this project apart is the use of reclaimed pallet wood boards for the back of the bookcases. Check out the full project on designertrapped for more info.

29. Narnia-inspired wardrobe

The wardrobe from the Narnia movie is one of the most iconic pieces of furniture in cinematography and this project from blesserhouse was inspired by it. Of course, when you open these doors you won’t really find a magical fantasy world but you will reveal something super charming: a cozy reading nook with bookshelves, a cute lamp and comfy pillows.

30. A super simple tree bookshelf

This tree bookshelf looks absolutely magical and, best of all, when you take a closer look at it it becomes apparent that it’s really easy to build, surprisingly easy in fact. The tree trunk and the curvy branches and leaves are painted on the wall (stickers could also work) and the actual bookshelf are installed on top, giving it a 3D effect. Check out the tutorial created by Disha Mishra Dubey if you want a more in-depth description.

31. Simple and versatile book ledges

These small book ledges are an interesting variation of the traditional bookshelf. They take up less space compared to those and they’re specifically designed to showcase and display not just books but also magazines, framed pictures and so on. They’re really easy to make and they suit any type of space or style. Check out the tutorial on thediyplaybook for more details.

32. Floating shelves with edge brackets

In addition to all the different types of shelves and styles to choose from, another important element is the brackets. These can have a big impact on the overall aesthetic of the bookshelves. A good example is the design featured on sugarandcloth where the metal brackets snugly hold the shelves in place and give them a slightly industrial appearance.

33. A simple way to customize a tower bookcase

In cases where you already have a bookcase that’s in good structural shape, an option to consider is giving it a makeover and customizing it to better fit your style or the room that it’s in. An idea is to use paint in a way similar to the one described on thouswell to add a bit of color to the bookcase without completely changing its appearance.

Conclusion

The next time you need to add more storage to your home and tidy up your book collection, consider giving one of these DIY bookshelf design projects a try.

There’s a bookshelf idea here to fit any size of space, and you’ll love the fun decoration they also add to your space. For anyone who loves reading, it’s important to look after your book collection. By adding one of these bookshelves, you’ll enjoy admiring your beloved books for many years to come and updating your home décor in the meantime.