The Egg Carton Trick That Doubles The Storage Space On Deep Bookshelves

With the help of a bookcase, readers allow their books to double as home decor pieces that each tell their own story. While the finished results of these book organization setups are often stunning, the process is not as simple as just plopping each book down on a shelf. If you have your own collection, you know that it can be challenging to make enough room on shelves to store each book neatly. There simply is not enough space sometimes. Once a reader succumbs to this struggle, books often wind up stacked in unorganized piles and wedged into tight openings. Believe it or not, you can eliminate this problem on a deep bookshelf by using an egg carton as a book riser.

Once you place an egg carton on a large bookshelf, you can line up a row of books on top, and set a separate row of books directly in front of the makeshift book riser. This essentially splits each self into two tiers, which doubles the storage space on your bookcase. If you use free-hanging shelves rather than an entire bookcase, you may use this hack there instead. Just make sure that the shelves are deep enough to accommodate the size of the egg carton and an additional row of books in front of that carton. All in all, this organization tip will make your bookshelves so much better looking.

To get a better idea of how you can maximize space and multiply your bookshelf storage space, take a look at the TikTok posted by user @eryn_librarian. You can see that the content creator placed the carton at the back of the shelf. After one row of books was placed on the carton, another row of books fit perfectly in front, with the back row spines still visible. You could follow this method to split only a small section of a shelf, or you could mimic the technique shown in a separate TikTok posted by user @tiffany_collects. This content creator lined up multiple egg cartons to transform an entire shelf into two tiers.

Along with using this hack to expand storage space on each of your bookshelves, consider getting thinking outside of the box with how you decorate the furniture piece, too. This will help elevate it even more. One of the most creative ways to decorate a bookshelf is by breaking up long rows of books into smaller sections by placing gorgeous plants or ceramic pieces between them. Consider opting for hanging plants that will drape down over the shelves below. As for the ceramics, you can select decorative bowls or vases in colors that complement the books they will be placed next to.