Short of actually curling up in a relaxing space to get lost in the words on a page, there’s nothing reading enthusiasts love more than gazing at photo after photo of beautiful libraries, especially those they could potentially recreate in their own homes. This inspiration gallery of home libraries runs the gamut between secluded cabins in the woods and clever hammock placement to secret rooms and even bathtub-adjacent mini libraries.

Secluded Library & Guest House in the Woods

If seclusion is what you’re after, this ‘secret room’ in the woods of upstate New York offers an elevated level of privacy as you browse a floor-to-ceiling collection of books. Studio Padron designed the ‘Hemmelig Rom’, a 200-square-foot black cabin made from oak, as a guest house immersed in its woodland environment. The logs that make up the bookshelves and walls came from the forest outside.

Reading Net for Kids

Perfect for homes with mezzanines (especially if you line the walls with bookshelves), this idea from Spanish studio Playoffice would be fun to recreate. The ‘reading net’ is a meshed fabric suspended from the railings of a family library so kids (and adults) can climb in and enjoy a book in elevated comfort.

Dynamic Wall-to-Wall Library in Costa Rica

Architect Gianni Botsford designed this unusual narrow home on stilts for the tropical jungle of Costa Rica, lining an entire wall of it with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves broken up by dynamic diagonal lines that meat the beams of the roof.

Library in the Home of Architect Mario Bellini

Presented as part of a Salone del Mobile exhibition called ‘Where Architects Live,’ this photo lets us peek at Mario Bellini’s home drafting table in his mezzanine library, as well as the piano and record room below. What you can’t see in the picture is that the bookshelves in that library continue nearly 30 feet into the air, accessible by sliding ladders.

Wraparound Home Library

Books are the primary focus in the entire common area of ‘Hendee-Borg House’ in Sonoma, California by William O’Brien Jr. The living and dining area is flanked by wall-to-wall bookshelves on three sides.

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Long considered a sub-material that should always be covered with something else, plywood has come into its own as a visually striking surface option for interior applications. An affordable alternative to solid wood, plywood is easy to shape, readily available and comes in textures ranging from the smoothest birch panels to mottled pressboard, and it’s getting a starring role in everything from micro apartments to cafes and modern offices.

Artist’s Studio in Tel Aviv

Thin sheets of beautiful birch plywood make up a clever floor-to-ceiling arrangement of drawers, doors, cupboards and niches in this multifunctional artist studio by Ranaan Stern. The drawers are custom-sized to fit a collection of two-dimensional art pieces. The sliding door hides a folding bed, and features peg holes for displaying smaller works of art and hanging tools.

All-Plywood Tiny Student Apartment

Created in response to a need for affordable student housing, this environmentally friendly ‘smart student unit’ is made from cross-laminated plywood and packs a surprising amount of comfort and function into under 100 square feet, including a kitchen, fold-down table, hammock, stairs leading to a sleeping loft, and even a private bathroom.

Modern Cabin Interior

A striking, matte-black geometric cabin in the woods of Poland by Tomek Michalski looks dark and monolithic from the outside, but bright and cheerful inside. The designer used plywood for nearly all interior surfaces and built-ins, including the couch and bed platform.

Transformer Apartment

This faceted geometric wall pushes out into the space within a 645-square-foot apartment by Vlad Mishin. Behind those plywood panels are books, a television, a kitchen and doors to the bathroom and bedroom.

Wall-to-Wall Shelving at Triangle House

Raw plywood pressboard covers nearly all of the interior surfaces in Norway’s ‘Triangle House,’ from the stair treads to entire walls of floor-to-ceiling shelves.

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Extremely narrow lots and busy urban locations are no big deal for ingenious Japanese architects creating comfortable, daylight-filled residential interiors with a few crucial design tricks, like the use of staggered open platforms instead of closed-off rooms. Interior courtyards, faux facades concealing secret gardens, strategically placed windows and totally transparent walls make the most of limited space.

Transparent House NA by Sou Fujimoto

Few Japanese houses are quite as eccentric as this one – a multi-story, glassed-in home with no stairs, no closed-off rooms and no privacy. House NA by Sou Fujimoto is built on a thin, split-level steel frame full of small platforms that don’t have a preset function, so they can be used however the inhabitants like. The house is almost more like an experimental installation than a real residence, given all that glass – you’d have to be quite an exhibitionist to live there. The further you walk into the home, however, the more complex and opaque all of those built-ins become, obscuring the vision of neighbors and passersby at least a little bit.

Translucent Rooftop Shed Skylights by Tato Architects

The need to extend the availability of daylight in an area of Japan that stays dark for much of the winter led to this novel solution by Tato Architects: placing transparent sheds on the roof of a partially subterranean home to act as giant skylights. From outside, the sheds look like greenhouses, while inside, they are bright, light-filled spaces for working, playing and lounging.

Treehouse Residence by Ryo Yamada

Envisioned as a treehouse in an urban context, this home by Ryo Yamada doesn’t actually look anything like a treehouse from the outside. The interiors, however, bear that tacked-together, DIY feel, especially given the wooden walkways that connect one open upper-level platform to the next. Located in Sapporo City, the house is essentially a large shell filled with individual ‘treehouses’ that can be moved around within the space, added to or removed altogether.

Courtyard Home with Street-Like Hallways by Suppose Design Office

This unusual house by Suppose Design Office is set up like a neighborhood block rather than an enclosed residence, with individual disconnected rooms under a large glass roof. The resulting spaces between the rooms function more like streets than hallways, with each room feeling like its own little house.

House H by Hiroyuki Shinozaki Architects

A stark white house on the outskirts of Tokyo conceals a complex, completely open interior in this project by Hiroyuki Shinozaki Architects. Eschewing interior walls, the design uses Y-shaped supports stretching from the pine floors to the ceilings and a series of staggered platforms to create individual spaces.

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Black is dark and depressing, morbid and gothic – or is it? The impact of large expanses of black in interior design can be surprisingly fresh, and just as dramatic as you’d expect. These 16 examples show the many different ways that this underused shade can be incorporated into a home or office, from stunning all-black rooms to accent walls.

Lacquered Wood Panels

(image via: chateaudelu)

Don’t like those wood panels? Interior designer Mary Ta of Minotti attacked the ones in her own Los Angeles home with a can (or twelve) of glossy black spray paint. With the furniture, fireplace and other elements sharing the same hue, the effect is anything but subtle. A large graphic Minotti rug adds some visual interest.

Glossy 3D Porcelain Tile

(image via: walk on tile)

Embossed porcelain tile could be quite dainty and feminine – but not when it’s all black. The tiles, by Walk on Tile, lend a dramatic effect to this room, brightened by a pop of red.

Black and Light

(image via: twisted sifter)

Almost everything in this stunning modern Joshua Tree home, designed by architect and former punk-rocker Robert Stone, is black. Open to the elements, the home rents for $200 a night for ‘glamping’ (glam camping). You can even watch the rain stream in from the ceiling in the bedroom, where patterns of sunlight provide constantly changing contrast throughout the day.

Torre de Cristal Office Interior

(image via: architeria)

Spanish firm A-cero Architects designed an all black-and-white office interior for Torre de Cristal, the “Crystal Tower”, in Madrid. The walls and roof are dark-toned suede, while the furniture is bright white.

Modern Marimekko

(image via: always mod)

Pattern is an ideal way to break up a mostly monochromatic room, as evidenced by this beautiful design showcasing Marimekko upholstery fabric and wall hangings.

Black Floors at the Capps Residence

(image via: best house design)

Does black always have to be moody and stark? Definitely not. Here, in the Capps Residence by Poteet Architects, it acts as a foil to vast expanses of white, and is offset by colorful accent walls.

Matte Bathroom

(image via: decodir)

FORM/Koichi Kimura Architects gave a modern Japanese home this unforgettable black bathroom, lightened only by the white of the bathtub.

Accent Wall at Maison Couturier

(image via: remodelista)

Black can be just as striking – if not more so – when used as an accent wall, especially adjacent to rustic textures. This room is a rental at Maison Couturier, a tropical estate in Veracruz, Mexico.

Pink Vanity Against Black Wall

(image via: archplanner)

A black wall is the perfect backdrop for a shocking pink vanity set, designed by ARBI.

Miles Redd’s Dramatic Kitchen

(images via: alkemie)

Perhaps no room that Miles Redd has designed has created more of an impact than his own personal kitchen. The white floor, stainless steel appliances and unusual glass countertop stand out in sharp relief against lacquered black cabinets.

Black on Black

(image via: shelterness)

An ebony apothecary cabinet nearly disappears into the wall behind it in this sophisticated interior.

Moorish Stencil

(image via: create h design)

Using a stencil and glossy black paint on top of a matte base coat, this entry was transformed, giving it the look of wallpaper.

Almost Black…

(image via: skonahem)

Sometimes, charcoal gray can make just as much of an impact as deep, dark black, but with a slightly softer effect.

Lace Against Black

(image via: lune vintage)

Lune Vintage of Winnipeg created this stunning white lacework dreamcatcher – can you imagine a backdrop that would be better for showing it off?

Chalkboard Paint in the Kitchen

(image via: my home ideas)

Another great way to get the dramatic effect of a black wall is to use chalkboard paint – then you can change it up whenever you want.

Balanced with White and Wood

(image via: apartment therapy)

A light wood floor, a white painted ceiling and, of course, plenty of windows letting in natural daylight keep the black walls from looking dark and bleak in this beautiful interior.

Bold and industrial, prominent metals in interior design are more often seen in large commercial spaces – but how do they translate to the home? Fans of the luster and shine of steel, aluminum and copper can bring the modern minimalism of these metals into living rooms, kitchens and entire indoor spaces with these 12 metallic interior design ideas, from striking details like fireplaces and water fountains to larger applications like walls and ceilings.

Ribbed Metal Ceiling

(image via: contemporist)

Cost-effective and totally unexpected, the ribbed metal ceiling in this Coconut Grove, Florida home by Mateu Architecture echoes metallic elements used in the kitchen and outside the house.

Stainless Steel Mosaic Wall Tiles

(images via: memois)

Stainless steel tiles aren’t unusual in bathrooms or as back splashes in modern kitchens, but it’s their use here to cover an entire living room wall that puts them in a whole new light. Shimmering and textural, this tile application creates an eye-catching accent wall.

Japanese Aluminum Modular Kitchen

(image via: blue star aluminum)

Shiny metal is much more than just an accent in this modular kitchen. Calling to mind commercial kitchens in which every surface must be easily sanitized, but on a smaller scale, the minimalist result is clutter-free and contrasts nicely with a natural wood floor.

Penny Tile Floors

(images via: studiogblog)

At about $2.50 per square foot, paving your floor with money is not as extravagant as it sounds. Though they’re now made mostly of zinc, pennies still give off a beautiful copper sheen, and their natural patina lends a variegated result that is rich and subtly shiny.

Ultramodern Steel Sofa

(image via: modern chair design)

Looking like it was carved from one solid block of metal, this curving sofa in a shape reminiscent of a sea shell is definitely a bold way to bring metals into your living room.

B3 Monoblock Kitchen

(image via: design awards)

Seemingly seamless, the B3 Monoblock by Bulthaup so strongly resembles a solid block of metal that it causes people to wonder whether you hauled it up to your apartment with a crane. Custom-made of high-grade stainless steel, these lustrous kitchen islands are totally lust-worthy.

Steel Stairs

(images via: weburbanist)

Since stairs are often located in the heart of a home, they provide another opportunity to stun with steel. These three creative sets of metal stairs in unusual designs certainly stand out.

Aluminum Walls

(image via: dezeen)

For this prefabricated home in Kanazawa, Japan, architecture firm Atelier Tekuto formed the interior spaces using molded aluminum rings, left unfinished so that the wall and ceiling surfaces of the home are entirely metallic. The architects cut energy costs by 80% by putting the reflective qualities of aluminum to good use, installing small LED lights directly into the ceilings and walls.

Contemporary Steel Fireplace

(image via: tktdw)

A column of steel stretching from floor to ceiling makes the living room fireplace an even bigger draw. These three examples include minimalist matte cold-rolled steel, a more artistic reflective stainless steel surround and a  free-standing modern fireplace that even includes storage space.

Copper Water Wall

(image via: indoor fountains online, best home gallery)

Water fountains are perhaps one of the easiest ways to bring metallics into your home in a big, bold way – in many cases, you simply hang the fountain on wall brackets and plug it in. Other installations can be more complex, like built-in water walls. The reflective qualities of the metal give the falling water even more sparkle.

Industrial Metal Apartment

(images via: dornob)

Taking the whole ‘metallic interior’ theme to an intense extreme, this apartment design in Moscow by designer Peter Kostelov is startlingly industrial – some might even say prison-like. But even if you consider this much  metal to be overkill, you can’t say that the space isn’t visually engaging with its patchwork of textures, visible welds and exposed rivets.

Void Masonry: Entire Home Made of Steel

(images via: dornob)

Atelier Tekuto’s beautiful all-metal house may be even more extreme than the metal apartment interior, but at least it’s light-filled with a grid of glass openings in the steel sheath. The steel boxes in the metal walls aren’t just visually striking and convenient for storage; they’re load-bearing, and also designed to regulate indoor temperatures as the seasons change.