I RUINED MY BOOKSHELVES. 

I couldn't do a rainbow bookshelf, I hate the idea of splitting up series !

*sees title* DID YOU CLIMB THEM AGAIN SASHA?????

I can't stand separating book series but I just organize my books by series

i personally think that rainbow bookshelves are better if you own mostly stand alone books are duologies otherwise it’s just confusing lol. i might have one rainbow bookshelf in the future with all of my stand alones and duologies because they’re super aesthetically pleasing.

No wayyyy I'd ever mix my books with someone else's

I organize them by Type: I worked at a bookstore for 2 years so I got used to seeing certain genres of books in a specific place then alphebtised by author. I have my study/school books on one shelf (study guides, text books, inclass reading anthologies, work books) by authors name. Then personal/self education, history, travel, self help, non fiction( non-fiction teen, biographies. RU-vidr books), fashion, poetry, classics, and Coloring/art books. Then on my other shelf I have my fantasy/fiction books, first by series then by author. The majority of books I own are fantasy-esk so there's a separate method of madness: series (favorites top then work down) then books are alphebtised by author for teen, young adult, and young readers. On my bottom shelf I have my RPG novels and my RPG gaming Guides for D&D. Those are organized by size and then Name. Once a bookseller, always a book seller.

I liked hearing the negative about rainbow bookshelves because I only hear about the aesthetically pleasing component. Now I definitely will not organize my shelves that way because I know I’d never be able to find specific books. Great video! :)

Instead of trying to make a "rainbow" display of your books, I recommend that you adopt a goal of making your bookcases "restful" to the eye. While it is wonderful to have many books that are of value to you, having a wall of books can be visually overwhelming if you are doing anything else in the room beside looking for a book. In the past, say pre-1960, this goal was easier, since books were much more uniform then, in size as well as color. This explains why old photos of bookcases from the 40's and 50's can look so "classy". Meanwhile, not so very many book covers are so colorful. Most will be black or white, as you discovered. The key, I think, to making a "restful" book arrangement is to think in terms of "a bookshelf" or "a bookcase". If you can identify a "category" of books that belong together, and that category has, say, 30 books in it, then that category will fit on one shelf. If you only have 30 books to look through to find the one you're looking for, then there is no need to arrange them alphabetically, or in any other particular order, so you might as well arrange that shelf by color, not necessarily with the goal of making a rainbow, but mainly to arrange similar colors together so as to make the effect more restful to the eye. Generally, that means taking into account the height of the books, as well as the color. If your category has, perhaps, 150 books in it, enough to fill a bookcase, then you might consider grouping all similarly-colored books onto their own shelf, within the bookcase. For instance, the bottom 2 shelves might be for books with black covers, then a blue/green shelf, then a red/brown shelf, and one or two white shelves on top. Of course, this can make it a bit difficult to find a particular book, but if you know what category it is in, you probably will be able to find it pretty quickly. And your bookshelf or bookcase will be more restful to the eye, while still maintaing a high degree of "findability". One unexpected benefit? When books are grouped together by color, the titles are easier to read -- your eye doesn't need to readjust so much to read titles printed over varying colors of background. I wouldn't recommend color arrangement for any category that contained more than a bookcase full of books. Keep in mind that if you pull out your special sets and subgenres as their own categories, the remaing books might fit into a single bookcase. For cases when you still have more than a bookcase of books in a particular category, sort those books, if you want to, alphabetically by author, dewey-decimal, or whatever order you prefer. Even if I had 1000 fiction books that I couldn't break down into smaller categories (I don't), I probably would be too lazy to *fully* sort them by author's name. I'd probably break them into 26 "categories" (one for each letter of the alphabet) and assign a shelf to each. Books by authors with a name starting with "K" might get their own shelf, while "U" and "V" books might share one. There might be an entire "S" bookcase. As above, the books within a particular category can be arranged in any particular way without losing much in the way of "findability", so you might as well arrange them so that similar colors are grouped together within that category / shelf / bookcase.

What you could do is put series on one side (and organise it in whatever way) and then all the standalones (maybe duologies) into a rainbow shelf to sort out not knowing where books in a series are but still having colour coordinated shelves. I don't organise my shelves in this way. I have cupboard shelves so my books are really randomly organised except one shelf which is full of dark coloured covers (not on purpose, just realised after and liked it). My non fiction and fiction are separate and series are together but that's about as organised as it gets.

I have more books than shelf room so I have some books grouped by series but the rest are just put where ever they can fit. 😂

I also un-rainbowed my bookshelf and displayed my favourites front and centre instead. It made me happier. ☺️

I do not have rainbow bookshelves, and to be honest, I think people who do them are crazy. How do they find anything? I do not know. How I organize my shelves is first by genre and then by time period. I have a lot of classics, historical biographies, and historical fiction novels so this method works for me. I used to work at Half Price Books and I can give you a few tips on how we organized them there and what I find is personally best. Start by sorting out your books by genre. For instance, Scifi, Fantasy, mystery, historical fiction, classics, and since you do write I would also create a category for reference and writing materials so those are all together in the same place for you. Once this is done, within each of the genres, organize it alphabetically by the author's last name and then within their works organize it by series. I would also alphabetize each of the genres. For example, biography, children's, fantasy, historical fiction, science fiction, etc.

“Do I wish I never did it. Yah!” Lol. Ur so cute u crack me up

Lol I own a lot of multicoloured and black Grey and white books so how is it going to become rainbow :( I organize mine with favourites first so harry potter then shadowhunters etc

After I'm done with college, I would love to do like one book case in a rainbow and the rest not. Like, maybe a contemporary bookshelf in a rainbow. I think that that would be easier as a lot of contemporary novels have bright colored covers and it is a lot more common for contemporary novels to be stand alone verses other genres, so there would be a lot less broken up series. I love how rainbow shelves look, but like you I've got a lot of black and white and brown books and such. And, I've also go a lot of books that have color, but they are very dull or dark, not bright like a rainbow. So, one day I'll do a rainbow contemporary book case. But, yeah, you pretty much summed up the struggles of the rainbow shelf.

I had a rainbow bookshelf only filling one of those Ikea units, each shelf a different color. I didn’t actually have issue with having enough books of each color, bottom shelf was for grey-blacks 🤔 I found it made me keep/buy books I wasn’t in love with just cause they were the right color and that was lame.

I organize them by genre 😂

I love your videos so much and I cannot wait for Nexus!!!!

My bookshelves are organized into my “Read” books and my “TBR” books.

This video made me so happy! I'm so glad now that I decided not to rainbow my shelves. I'm way to picky about keeping my series together. I just have mine organized by genre and then alphabetical by the author's last name. But I sometimes stray from alphabetical when I want to keep a huge series {like the Mortal Instruments) all on one shelf. Super jealous of how many shelves you have!

I organize them by color and height but if they are a series, they stick together no matter what (except if they are in different heights). In my mom’s house (because I have one bookshelf for my mom’s and one for my dad’s) I also separate it by read and haven’t read. The top two shelves are read, the middle shelves I haven’t read, and the bottom shelf is reserved for my TBR! I like color but I don’t do it like the rainbow bookshelves. I kinda let it dissolve to different colors and for me it works. Hope your bookshelf is better now!

I tried to coordinate just *one* shelf of blue books for one of FairyLoot's spring photo challenges and trying to get the color gradient right literally frustrated me to tears. (It was NOT fun.) Also I can't stand splitting up series and like to keep all books by the same author together so I can easily track which ones I own. Since I'm a librarian's daughter, I base my shelves off the Dewey Decimal system- split into sections by genre, then alphabatize each section by author last name. For authors like Cassie Clare who have a LOT of titles, I just give them their own shelf. I've also dedicated 1 bookcase to books from my childhood, and 1 to favorite books of all time. Those I just do whatever is aesthetically pleasing.

I always organize my books by height, they look very neat that way

I personally only organize my contemporary/stand-alone books by color. I think it adds a nice effect to my shelf without having to split up any of my series. You could try doing the rainbow bookshelf that way because it does add some organization to the concept.

my bookshelf is organized alphabetically by authors last name. makes it easy to find books and i don't have to break up series or books published by the same author

I have a rainbow shelf but only for my TBR books! Books that I’ve read are on a shelf all on their own and I do them by series and stand-alones.

That is the exact reason I will never organise my books by colour! I don't understand how people can as it would separate so many of my series!

My bookshelves are organized by series, personal importance, and size (books of the same height go next to each other).

I only have one column of my shelf rainbow, all the ones that dont be among in a series! The rest is sorted by hard back and paper back with series together!

I’m very weird when it comes to shelving my books: First I do it by publisher. Then author. And lastly by series. I keep all the books in a series together. Sometimes they do end up with different publishers in the series. I can usually shrug that off. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤣

I love rainbow shelves! I have the rainbow style but only for my physical TBR books. That way it doesn’t matter too much if series and authors are split up

I like the idea of rainbow shelves, but I need my books to be more organized, into series and authors. Separating an author's books just for a color aesthetic just drives me crazy!

I tried it and kept it for a while because I didn't want to change it back. But then I spent over an hour finding a book for my friend and realized that a) it wasn't even that good because I did not have enough books to do it properly and B) I couldn't find anything at all and C) I did not like it. So I switched them back.

I wish my OCD could handle the rainbow color bookshelves. So gorgeous to see😍😍but not efficient for me. I organize mine by series and stand alone books together. Helps me when I'm not ready to commit to a series when reading.

OH my goodness! LOL I commend you guys for tackling that task with so many books! I think I'd have the same issue having a ton of black, grey, and white books.

When I moved into my new apartment, I have two bookshelves. I had decided to try the book rainbow as well. It turned out all right, but like you, Sasha, I organize my books by series and the idea of splitting my series up made me feel like I was splitting up families. Plus I own a lot of mass market paperbacks so it looked kind of messy. I think I had it organized like that for a couple of weeks and realized I didn't really care for it and put my series back together.

I had the rainbow but like you I couldn't find anything. Now all the series are back together and I keep them organized by genre.

Can I find any books on it? Heck no Do I wish I never did it? Yeah 😂😂 laughed so hard at this part

hahaha I love this. I have a rainbow shelf, but that's because I have a really hard time remembering book titles or author names. For me it's so much easier to remember the colour of a spine or cover. As for the colour thing? I read a lot of thrillers and fantasy/scifi novels and wow they have 'boring' spines. I've started to do a really loose rainbow? I basically surround all the pretty books with the boring ones so that the fun coloured books end up more in the middle with a black frame lol

I have mine organized by type. I have my classic literature in a group, comics and graphic novels in a group, children's books together and arts and crafts books together.

This made me chuckle but I feel bad for you aww bless! Mine are organised by genre with a few fave author shelves

I didn’t want a rainbow bookshelf because I’d need to split up series but instead I grabbed all my standalone novels and organized those in a rainbow fashion on the top planks. It turned out quite nice.

I totally love seeing other people’s rainbow bookshelves & would love to have mine in one.. but I honestly would hate to break up any series that I have. Series’s that I have, have to be together and books by the same author have to be together too, I personally find that so much easier to remember!

I just organize by genre and love that a lot, I'll also have a shelf dedicated to recent buys

Usually I organize my books by author. That way I can always find series or books by the same person. Sometimes I mix it up a bit but I prefer it that way.

I organise my standalones in a rainbow pattern and also by size This way I can keep the series together, still enjoy the rainbow and know where everything is 😊

I did my bookshelves by rating after rainbow shelves didn’t work out for me. I have books I liked on the top shelf, books I haven’t read, books I didn’t like, etc. Then I know where everything is and I know what to get rid of 😊

This is exactly why I never switched to a rainbow bookshelf! I was so worried that I would never be able to find them. I organize my books by series and then my tbr I do by height so that way it’s symmetrical and looks nice on the shelf that is in the living room.

i organize by genre of YA and above and then near the back i will put the middle grade books. And that's just novel-wise. for manga, I have a separate shelf and they are in order by favorites on on side and ones I need to read on the other. I know it may sound confusing but it makes sense for me and the kind of bookcase I have. American comics have their own section on a divided part of one of my bookshelves. Same authors books go together no matter what, of course. Also have book ends on display and always ready to grab a book from for american comics,artwork books and anything anime related that is slim and not manga.

I organize mine by read and unread books, that way i could just browse on the other shelf on what i want to read next ( sort of like a tbr shelf) and then what i would do is organize( again) the read shelf by ratings. 5 stars in the top, 4 stars in the middle and so on.

I love how rainbow bookshelves look! They’re SO PRETTY Buuut I have decided that I’m not gonna do it because I hate splitting up series and not knowing where each book is 😣

yes I tried rainbow as well. It took me like one whole day but i ended up organizing it with sizes at the end.

I love my rainbow shelves! I don’t mind splitting up series and can usually tell which book is what by the spine anyway ☺️

Favorites on top. Gifted books middle. Then others in bottom

I actually don't own a bookshelf, so my books are stacked Tetris style on top of my dresser, and my favorite series are shelved on my desk!

I organize mine by types. I split fiction and non-fiction, then fiction by genre (contemporary, scifi, fantasy,...), and non-fiction by subject (I have a lot of art/archeology books, marketing, language, psychology, etc.). Then I divide the "fiction/genre" part by authors, so series stay together. I don't alphabetize because as they are within a same genre, I just juxtapose series that match together on the same shelve, by example : fiction > fantasy > female heroine). I do the same for non-fiction, though I do not have any series, so it would be more like : non-fiction > Arts/Archeology > Scandinavian rock art (yeah, I have a shelve about that). I personally find it is the easiest way to find things quickly. Then I organize the location of my shelves depending on use. So the shelves closest to my desk usually hold books I use as a reference, so they are easier to grab :) The highest shelves hold the fiction books as I am less likely to grab them for reference once they are read, and basically are arranged prettily with some figures and other decorations. Plus the "reference" shelves always get messy and I pull stuff out a lot so I can't have decorations on there. The top of my bookshelves hold either books to big to fit on the shelves (it does happen sadly) or very pretty and expensive books that are "on display" and also completely untouchable for people who come over :D So that was my very specific organization. I'm out :'D

I have one shelf with all of my colourful contemporaries + two debuts mixed in with the rest because they're such vibrant colours. Other shelves are either organized by genre, author, or what just kind of looks okay together. I have one shelf with all of my unread books on it. (I wish. Well about 50-60 are on that shelf from the 200+ that I have.)

I have a rainbow bookshelf and love it sooo much. I only have 3 shelves and 4 rows contain my favourite series (Cassy Clare, Outlander, HP and Sarah J Maas). I can totally see why it would be so hard in your case with 14 shelves to find books in a series!!

Yeah I feel like it doesn’t work unless you have the right amount. Plus I’d want one color on each shelf and that makes it a lot harder. ❤️😭

books only get a place on my shelves once they’re finished and out of my TBR pile so I don’t have to access my shelves very often so an aesthetic arrangement doesn’t bother me. But my friend who’s a grad student tried to make her shelves rainbow and accidentally ruined her life!

I organize my books by series and I have a shelf for standalones.... Thanks for this video Sasha!!!

I have my books split in two: my read books and my TBR books. My read books are in a rainbow but my TBR shelf is organized by genre 🤷🏻‍♀️

I have my bookshelves from read to unread right now, but hopefully soon I can reorazinge my books back by series. Hope that you get yours fixed soon and i love when you do videos like this

I have just 2 small shelves so I cannot organize it how I really want it. So I put in the foreground of shelves books I love so much.

I tried the Rainbow Bookshelf because it looked so pretty but I ran into the same problem that you said in the video with all the grays and blacks so I had to scrap the idea and arranged my bookshelf by Authors which is so much easier to find the book you are looking for on!

I wish I had that much space for my books. I'll probably have to get a roommate when I move out of my parents house and will probably request some who loves reading. Good luck on organizing it again.

I organize my books by series, author and genre. All of my contemporaries are on are on a shelf together, then fantasy, sci-fi, etc.

This is one of the reasons I love ebooks. (Planning on doing a video on all the reasons.) No shelves to worry about. If I want to find a book, I just have to type the title in the search field.

The way that I organize my books is by genre and then alphabetically by authors last names. It seems like it's hard to organize, but it Leo's it neat and tidy.

See I have just my stand alone shelf in a rainbow pattern so none of my series get mixed up 😂. It would stress me out so bad to not be able to find my books! (I hope you get your shelves just perfect for you!)

I’ve always organised by the authors last name and then in the order of when the books came out (keeping series together tho, which can cause some confusion if you’re trying to explain it to others, but it makes sense to you...or me in this case). But one day, a long time ago, I made rainbow bookshelves. It looked really pretty. But it drove me crazy. To keep a long story short. I couldn’t sleep that night and by the next day the bookshelves were back in a normal sane order 😝 I do love re-organising my (and watching someone else re-orginise theirs 😉) bookshelves....which happens every now and again since I tend to not put new books up on the shelves before I’ve read them.

Rainbow bookshelves just don't work for me at all. Yeah if you've got similar amounts of all the colours, lacking neutral tones then it might look OK. May look cool but you can't find anything and I hate splitting up series, it's just wrong. Mine are organised by genre. You could do a rainbow section with standalones only though. You wouldn't be splitting things up and they're usually bright colours. Collections like yours sasha could do that really well since you have so many xxx

I organized my bookshelf by genre and series, it’s sooo easy to find. I have one tiny rainbow section and that’s only with contemporary books

I have 5 book shelf, 3 bookshelfs (that are a bit bigger than the other ones) stand next to my bed and have all the books I already read. The other two stand next to my desk and those are my TBR shelves. (None of my shelves are really full, a lot of covers are facing out, so I have room to grow) Within both categories, I separated English books from German books. And within those categories my books are organized by genre (if possible all books by the same author stand together, but the authors are not organized alphabetically) and within those genres the ones that I liked the best, or that I anticipate to like the best are on the top shelves, and the ones I didn't like that much at the button. Additionally top that I have the lowest boards of my shelves for non fiction books, and on top of the shelves for classics

I can not do a rainbow bookshelf. I have too many black books that half of my bookshelves would be colored while the other half would be black. I organize mine by my favorites if that makes sense. Basically I just put my absolute favorite books and display it at the top of my bookshelf and then towards the bottom are the books that while I did enjoy, I just didn't enjoy them as much. But mostly it's just random. I don't know if that makes sense but I'm tired and sleep deprived from having to wake up at 5:30 every morning for school.

I have two different bookshelves! Both of them are cubed with the larger one being in my bedroom and is organised by series, while the smaller one is in the guest bedroom and is all my stand alone books which I've organised as a rainbow! :)

I organise mine by genre, and then within that I start with my favourites and follow it to least favourites/haven’t read Xx 💫

Kudos for simply trying to reorganize such a massive amount of books. Looking at my shelves there are quite a few "dull" {black \ whites}, though possibly even if not a rainbow pattern, perhaps according to a color gradient can be achieved. Personally I mostly sort according to publication companies {which also enables to keep series together {assuming I bought the series from the same place}} as some of them have a common theme to various books. On each shelf I try to sort by author and color when possible.

I have a mini rainbow bookshelf which has all my hardcover standalones it looks great. I then have a READ bookshelf which is organised by rating. My regular bookshelf is alphabetised and my MUST GET TO / most anticipated shelf is organised by well, I guess, how excited I am to read them. I also have some books at partners place which are organised by genre and then alphabetised. I just like to organising them, but I could not have all in a rainbow. I have too many different sizes, ugly covers and black books. I have a mini one though and that makes me happy enough.

I currently organize my unread books in a rainbow pattern and once I've read them, I'll put them on another shelf, where they are organized alphabetically :)

*reads title* YOU DID WHAT !? *begins to cry holding books*

I have a rainbow bookshelf. I did a couple months ago go back to a “regular” bookshelf organization but I ended up liking the rainbow better and redoing it

I have four very different sized and shaped bookshelves, one is one of those ikea shelves where it’s a square split into nine boxes, my other bookshelf is just a basic tall one with rectangular shelves, then my last two are curved and go into the corners of my room. On the rectangular bookshelf I have some of my longer series on it, but I only put one per shelf and beside them is either a duloagy or a trilogy. For my circular bookshelves I have more series, but these are the smaller ones, maybe 4 or 5 books rather than 8 or 9. With them are more duloagys and trilogies, but on my one circular shelf I ran out of series so on the last few shelves I put some of my more aesthetic books of my favourite books. Finally for my ikea shelf I have all of my stand alone books and I organize them by colour, but I have so many that they need to be squeezed in and some are vertical while others are horizontal..... I can’t fit in any more books but I don’t want to have to reorganize my other shelves to make more room. They look so gorgeous but I need a place to put my new books😩😩😩

Even tho I absolutely LOVE the look of rainbow bookshelves I would never be able to do it myself; firstly because I don’t have nearly enough colored books and secondly, I absolutely HATE splitting up series’s 😂😂 Currently have my shelves semi-organized in ganra and series’s, tho I don’t like the ganra part that much. Thinking that when I manage to collect more books and my shelves get more full I’ll manage to organize it more and in a way I like better, hopefully 🤔🤗

I have a rainbow bookshelf and I love it; though that may be because I am a very visual person and always can remember where things are so it isn't a struggle for me to find things.

I did a rainbow shelf my sophomore year of college because I only had one bookcase with me, and I didn’t bring any full series only the books I hadn’t read yet. It was easy to keep up with, but I could never do it at home with all of my shelves.

I have a similar problem! I love the rainbow look but most of my books are dark and the rainbow wouldn’t end up filling much 😂 I currently have hardcover books and paperbacks separate but each organized but author surname. I like being able to chatter off the alphabet and be able to find any book I’m looking for 😂

I organize my books by genre, then series or stand-alones. I put the series together and organize stand-alones by color.

I wouldn't be able to split my series lol but it's pretty for sure! Me I organized my shelves by series and the first shelf is always my favorites hehe

I organize my bookshelf by genre, series etc. but some of the standalones which are the same genre I organize by color on the shelf, so I have both: the books are easy to find and it looks pretty😀

I always organize my books in a series and by author and then by color within that!!

i could never split up my series! i do mine by author and genre, generally my dystopians are a darker colour while my YA romances are pink and bright so it gives the illusion that maybe its colour coded but not quite XD

Yeaahhh I tried rainbow shelves for a week... and promptly realized it was a nightmare to add in new books. So i changed it back to series and i organize by genre now. Much happier with the outcome. Good luck with reorganizing!

A tip for organize your bookshelves, take pictures of each shelf that way you know where the books go.

I don't have a bookshelf. All my books are in my closet. The reason is I wasn't much of a reader until 5 years ago and my parents did not think of the possibility of me becoming a reader/book collector. The closest IKEA to where I live is 3-4 hours away (on the outskirts of Dubai) so I need to go on a roadtrip some day and buy me some bookshelves. I would love to read your book but I'll need to wait until I get my paycheck. P.S: I work at McDonald's.

I organise my bookshelves according to genre (fiction and non-fiction). Then within those genres I further organise the books by author's surname including the non-fiction ones. I also tend to have a lot of theology and/or religious/Christian books which I sort into their own specific genres as well but I still use the author's surname (first three letters of their last name) as with all my other books. It makes finding books so much easier.

I usually just order by serie. And my stand alones are in a rainbow patern. I pushed the duller stand alone covers to the back (my shelves have double rows of books on them) so you dont see them.

I have two main bookshelves, one of which I keep all my series and then the other I have my stand alones organized in a rainbow pattern.

I have split my books up into read and unread books. My unread books are all in different wrapping papers so that I feel a lot less overwhemed with my TBR pile. My read books are split into hardback vs paperback and are organized by height within that or as best as I could get it since I have more unread books than I have read books.

This is why I’ve been really reluctant to have a rainbow shelf. Well, that and only having 5 bookshelves....