Book lovers state their case

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Living with books usually means loving books. As any self-respecting bibliophile knows, that means finding ways of arranging and displaying books so they don't take over the house.

The challenge is learning how to integrate books into a room so the arrangement compliments both the room and the books. Enter the design professional -- an architect, interior designer or artist whose natural talent lends itself to the job -- with suggestions on how to do this.

Washington-based artist-photographer William Christenberry is an unabashed lover of books, with a special fondness for beautifully illustrated volumes about art and related subjects. Some of the best of these, all hardcovers, including some valuable first-edition nonfiction books, can be found in floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases in the dining room. The same room holds a unique side cabinet designed for extra-large volumes by architect Jane Treacy, who lives next door in his Northwest neighborhood.

For another client, Ms. Treacy designed bookcases built into the walls alongside a staircase to give the room a warm, orderly appearance.

In the Christenberry home, all the books' spines face outward in solid rows flush with the edges of the shelf. Dust jackets are covered in protective acetate or Mylar. "Acetate has a tendency to yellow with the years, but Mylar is inert," he says.

His wife, Sandy, once tried to talk him out of covering the books on aesthetic grounds, until he learned that keeping the dust jacket intact increases the value of a book.

"I buy books to look at them. My wife and daughter read books," he says.

Simple but handsome bookcases bought at Ikea hold more books along one wall of the master bedroom. Mr. Christenberry added three-quarter-inch vertical plywood supports to keep the heavily laden shelves from sagging. More books lie inside his studio closet among an extensive CD collection. Except for a few shelves of poetry and fiction in the living room, including a set of blue-and-gold leather-bound Harvard classics, Mr. Christenberry doesn't group his collection in any particular order, mainly because he knows by memory where each title is.