Here's the dining room.

I think it's a great idea. It's your house, make the space work for YOU. Move the DR table and chairs out and the bookcases in--plus a comfy loveseat, chair, floor lamp, area rug, et tout ca. Make a separate area where folks can go for quiet time if too much is happening in the LR! Replace the chandelier with led track lighting focused on the reading area or simply cap it off. I'd put the table/chairs in the bsmt, protect it with a thin sheet of plywood, and use it for sewing, or for craft & scrapbooking parties. When/if you go to sell, turn the area back into a dining room if the RE agent feels it's necessary. Easy.

One possibility is to use the bookcases as a partial room divider if layout etc permits.

Otherwise, I'm certain a cabinetmaker could modify the bookcases to accomodate your electronics, perhaps. Depending on the size of your television, 'though, it might not be practical.

This post was edited by Baroo2u on Thu, Feb 6, 14 at 6:51

I'd love to have those bookcases, to match my large single one. They would work well in your dining room if you can rotate the table. The dynamics of TVs are changing so much, wouldn't consider altering the bookcases.

I guess I'm a detractor. I think it would look like you put them there because you had no other place for them. I also think the wainscoting would make it not work well, as well as causing the bookcases to jut out from the wall a bit, due to the chair rail.

What about a hallway or a bedroom?

What Tibbrix said.

Check out the link provided by teacat in another thread on using the DR.
The jutting out may not be that big an issue. How much of the wall would it fill?

Here is a link that might be useful: dining room library

I think the dining room looks nice, and would not spoil it by moving bookcases in there.

Hey everyone,

Just before falling asleep last night, I thought I had a brilliant solution: our guest bedrooom/office has a wall that would JUST fit the bookcases. The sofabed that's in there now probably wouldn't fit along with the desk and bookcases, but I saw somewhere a chair version of a sofabed--opens up to a twin bed--and that would probably work just fine.

BUT in the clear light of day, we realized a big problem: getting the bookcases moved in there. There's a trickly little hallway we'd have to maneuver, and to tell the truth, I'm just not sure it can be done.

If anyone knows the kind of math I'd have to do to figure how to move a large bookcase around a small hallway, please help me figure it out.

Thought going outside and through the window would work, but unless there's a way to remove the fixed top window of our single-hung windows, that won't work either.

I would think that they weren't built as a single unit, but joined together to make one? It looks like that from the pic. It might take some doing, but I'd explore how to take one piece off (you might have to replace trim if it breaks removing it) so you can move it.

olychick, guess I didn't clarify: we would take them apart but don't think even as 3 separate bookcases we could move them into our guest bedroom. We COULD take them completely apart to nothing but boards, but that would be a huge job.

It could be that the furniture store we got them from might be able to send out their guys to take apart and move--for a price.

Is it the hallway or getting them into the room? If it is the room, you could remove the bed or lean it up against a wall t create more swing space while you move the bookcases in. In the hallway, you might move them standing up and just tilt to get in the door , or if that is the part you are most worried about, I'd try moving them on their side throught he hall.

I'm in the Tibbrix camp. Without the chair rail, you'd have a different story, and could turn the dining room into a library by changing out the light fixture (or maybe just shortening the chain). Bedroom sounds like a better - and cozier! - solution.

As for moving - the bookcases are both tall and wide, so I can see where making a tight hallway corner could be a challenge. If the bookcase is too tall to fit through the door upright, then I'd do a mockup. Cut a big piece of cardboard as tall as the bookcase, and as wide as the bookcase is deep (12" or so). If the cardboard can make the corner, so can the bookcase.

I was thinking about a cardboard mock up, too. You can get big pieces from a furniture or appliance store, usually. I get them for use in my garden as a weed barrier.

Take 'em apart and put 'em back together. Doesn't sound like a rush job. Put a couple pieces back each day, and before you know it, it'll be done! Seems to me taking everything off of them, packing it all, hauling that stuff to the guest room, then replacing all of it would be a bigger job!

We have bookcases in our dining room...They are a lot like yours except we have two separate ones. We have them on either side of the china cabinet.....looks like one big unit. Even my grown up boys think it looks good. Our bookcases have been in the family room on either side of a double window. They have been in the living room on a plain wall and now in the dining room where they will stay. Your picture looks like three separate bookcases with a board across the top holding them together. Very nice looking furniture.

Here is a great pin board full of ideas for combining dining room space with a library space ..... BUT you would have to make sure that the bookcases would work with the wainscoting .... then you might use the dining room space more often .... perhaps add a comfy chair or one of your smaller sofas with a standing lamp ...

Here is a link that might be useful: Pinterest -- dining library combos

teacats, you beat me to it. I was just looking those over earlier today.

No, I beat both of you :) Suggested Teacat's link above (with attribution)

Very cool pictures of the dining room libraries--my husband would LOVE a room like those.

BUT I think we just finally figured out the best solution: there's a wall next to the front door that's just exactly the size of the bookcases. It's where most people would have a mirror and table for keys/guest book, etc. We've got a small digital piano there, not knowing where else to put it. But it would be much easier to put the bookcases there and figure out some other place for the piano--maybe as a sofa table behind a sofa with a lamp on it.

To me, bookcases never look odd, anywhere. I have one in my powder room.

We have a similar bookcase (looks to be) in our living room: three sections with one moulding across the top and bottom. It does not have the bottom cabinets, but is all bookshelves. Just a piece of suggestion: please don't takes offense, I rarely offer advice on this board, am a lurker, not an advisor. I think it would look much more interesting if your case was "scattered", that is, the boards were at different heights so the books were at different heights. I like that most of the "things" in your case are books!

NO! Not at all. I love a wall of books in a dining room. Many high end designers make this choice.
Since you don't have need for a dining room, you can use the space a your reading room. Or maybe you'd like to consider repurposing the room all together, using the bookshelves as a foundation.

I think it would be find in the dining room IF she takes the wainscoting off the wall and turns the table to run lengthwise like the book case. (Maybe should anyway, to run with the wainscoting?).

The photos of the bookshelf-lined dining rooms are either all built-ins or pieces that fit flush against the wall so fit like built-ins. The wainscoting, I think ,would be a problem and throw it off.

There goes my dining/library. DH will never let me take the chair rail and wainscoting off the wall....

Yeah, IMO, that is the only problem with it. Maybe other can counter me and prove I'm wrong about this? I'm certainly no design expert!

Regardless, I do think you should try the table going the other way. I think it would look better running the same direction as the long wainscoting. But of course, we can't see the entire room in your photo, so could be wrong about that as well!

Tibbrix is right, the moldings would have to come off of the wall in order for the wall to look right with the bookcases in front of it, unless the bookcases are a bit longer than the wall and you have a way of covering the end - where you would see the wall gap behind the bookshelves. You could place a convenient pedestal and narrow tapestry there, I suppose.

The only other non-destructive way of using the bookshelves in the dining room is to use them to create a fourth wall. If the three bookshelves are not as long as the opening into the dining room, you can create a secluded - but sunny - space in your home. Simply place the shelves, book side in, as if there was a fourth wall in the room. If you do not like looking at the back of the bookshelves, consider getting stain-grade plywood to attach to the back and stain it to coordinate with the flooring and put a few coats of polyurethane on it. A hanging rug or tapestry or quilt are also possibilities to cover some of the space, or you could make a montage of family photographs or other artwork. Or do artwork on the wall. If you are into any particular genre of music, you can get album cover art to mount. Or posters. Only lack of imagination limits you.

Inside your new room, there is no reason to remove the dining table. You can add a pair of comfortable reading chairs with lamps and a side table, yet still have the dining table on the other end of the room. The room looks plenty long enough for the table to go in the other direction. You can also take a leaf out (if the is one to remove) and put it and a couple of chairs in the basement. You can also set two dining chairs in a little conversation area away from the table, maybe around a tea table. Then you may use the dining table as a dining table, or for doing jigsaw puzzles, playing games, or for some less-messy projects that you don't want to have to put away each day. Add a couple of area rugs to define spaces, raise the chandelier if it is too low, and put it on a dimmer if it is not already dimmable. Now the room is more usable and comfy.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with putting bookcases in front of wainscoting.

I had wainscoting in a previous dining room and had a server and a china cabinet that both covered the wainscoting.

To answer your more recent question, I don't know of any mathematical calculation for knowing whether something will fit through an awkward area.

I don't see anything wrong with putting a bookcase in front of the OP's wainscoting. Even the chair rail cap does not seem to project very far off the wall. I have a tall ardmore in my living room that is in front of a baseboard radiator. The ardmore comes off the wall a good 6 inches, albeit it is on an exterior wall, and it looks fine. If the gap is objectionable, you can always place a plant or something else on the one side of the bookcase to take your eye off the gap.

I also agree with others that bookcases are wonderful in dining rooms.

Love books anywhere and everywhere. Here's the bookshelf in our old dining room (which we got rid of during our remodel). I loved how this warmed the room up.

I like how the dog warms it up. :-)

I was going to say the same as Tibbrix about the dog. :-)

I think we've decided to move them to the "foyer" which seems like a grand name for an open area by the door--the entire living room/dining room/foyer are really one open space.

BUT my husband does really like those pics of the dining room libraries and we found on the Jesper website (the bookcases are the Jesper 2000 collection) that they have a room design program where you can put in your room room measurements and then see how the Jesper pieces would fit. Using the inside corner and outside corner pieces they have, we could actually make something that looks like it was made for the room. It only takes money. :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Jesper unit showing inside/outside corners