Some people just think of bookshelves as a place to keep books. But it can be more of an all-encompassing display and even a focal point for your room if you know how to style it. Here are some tips on how to make your bookcase more of a fun display and less of a simple storage eyesore.

Arrange your books.

Obviously the first step in the process of arranging your bookcase should be to take stock of the books you have to place there. It is, after all, a place to store your books. You’ll need to take a look at how many books you have and decide how to organize them. Some shelves may be shorter or taller than others, so you’ll have to decide where your books fit best. You can lay your books flat, stand them up, or do a mix of both.

Balance your colors.

Another factor you’ll want to consider is color. The spines of your books probably contain a lot of different colors and shades. So you’ll want to balance them somehow. You can either arrange them by color, actually separating each color family on different shelves as shown. Or you can just balance major colors throughout the case as a whole. To do that, you’ll have to make sure that dark colors are mixed in with lighter colors, and eye-catching colors like red are spread out evenly throughout the case as a whole.

Add bookends.

You don’t have to actually go out and buy bookends, but you can use items around your home that you want to display to separate different sections of books. If you sorted your books into different color families, then it should be easy to figure out where to put your bookends. But if you spread out the colors then you should just spread out your bookends in the same kind of way, making sure that they’re evenly spaced throughout the whole bookcase.

Add statement pieces.

You can also add larger pieces on some of your shelves, such as vases, lamps, or other large items. You can either set these items on the shelves themselves, or put them on top of a stack of books. But again, make sure that larger pieces are spaced out throughout the case and not consolidated in one area.

Fill in the rest.

Once you have your shelves basically filled, you can then add other little items that you want to display. Picture frames, toys, and other small knick knacks can help to fill in any little spaces and add a more personal touch to your bookcase.