Remove

“First decide what books you really want to keep,” says Donna Smallin, author of Cleaning Plain & Simple (Storey Publishing, $17, www.amazon.com). To make the process easier, Cincinnati-area professional organizer Stephanie Denton suggests thinking about what categories of books you’d like to hang on to—whether it’s biographies or mysteries or self-help books. “Decisions like that made ahead of time can make it easier when you go through your shelf,” she says.

Toss the books you decide to get rid of right into boxes. That way, they’re all together and easy to bring to a used-book store, where you might be able to get cash or credit for them. Then remove the rest of the books and, while the shelves are bare, use the opportunity to wipe down the unit or paint the back wall a contrasting color from the shelves. This will liven up your display and add depth to it.

Regroup

Your next job is to organize that cluttered combination of books and magazines. “One of the main principles we have in displaying books on the shelves is categorization,” says Mark Schneyer, associate director of the international division for Borders. “In the context of your house, that could mean cookbooks, fiction, books you read for pleasure, or books you need for your professional life.”

Smallin agrees. “I like, at the very least, to separate fiction from nonfiction,” she says. “It’s not critical (how you categorize them) — it’s just important there’s some way of knowing that a book is either in this section or that section.” The idea, she says, is to group the books in a way that makes sense for your purpose. That could mean by genre, by author, or even by size. “If it’s a bookshelf in a home office, you want to organize by use,” Denton says. “But if it’s a personal library or a decorative shelving area, you can organize according to a decorative purpose, such as all the leather-bound books together, or maybe you want to group them by color.”

Another way to organize books is by what you’ve read and what you haven’t. “I find myself in the living room sometimes just wanting something to read,” Schneyer says. In those instances, if all his unread books are in one place, he can simply go there and pick one out.

Magazines should be collected in holders, which are available in a wide variety of materials and colors. “Most of those will hold about a year’s subscription,” Denton says. “And I like to suggest that people store their magazines not with one year per holder, but instead with all the December issues together, then, in another, all the November issues.” That way, she says, when you’re trying to find a holiday cookie recipe or a Halloween decorating idea, you’ll be able to locate it quickly. Still, it’s best to ask yourself whether you really need to keep all those magazines and whether a bookshelf is the best place for them. If you decide to throw out magazines, “pull out articles you think might be useful to you and put them in a binder,” Smallin says. “Then you can have a binder full of home-decorating ideas or one of recipes you want to try.”

Reorganize

OK, you’ve weeded out the expendables, and you’ve regrouped the remaining books in a way that makes sense for you. Now you have to arrange the shelves so that they look good, too. And the way you arrange the books, knickknacks, and photos on each shelf can add an appealing visual element to the room. In addition to grouping books by color, as suggested above, consider stacking some horizontally and others vertically. “Alternating like that can make the arrangement more interesting to look at,” says Denton.

To keep the display neat and clean looking, Schneyer recommends taking a cue from the Borders store displays: Arrange books, no matter their size or width, so that all the spines run along the same line at the front of the bookshelf (in other words, don’t push them back). “Otherwise,” he warns, “little books get lost at the back of the shelf.”

Keep in mind, too, that pairing books with photos or artistic bowls can create a dramatic effect. “I’ll mix books that fill three-quarters of a shelf, then use a vase or a picture frame for the rest,” Smallin says. A vase can also double as a place to contain small items that would otherwise junk up a display. “Instead of tossing keys on the shelf in front of a book, consider a more decorative container that will not only corral the keys but also make the display look a little more artistic,” says Denton. Smallin agrees: “A little secret — if you have a basket or bowl that’s just above eye level, it can be full of stuff, but nobody will see it. It will just look like a bowl.”