I'm with ashilleong on this – excellent name, cute shape, totally impractical for the actual storing and retrieval of books (unless you only have a couple of dozen of roughly the same size and weight). My bookshelves need to house a lot of books and those books are immensely varied in size, weight and format and despite semi-regular clear outs as well as downloading books to the iPad (and the non-return of many loans!) the numbers continue to increase and require some sort of ordering in order to quickly and easily locate a required volume. So for people whose lives don't revolve around books or for whom books are an occasional indulgence or even those who treat them as a form of decor and buy them by the metre this doesn't really cut it as a bookshelf.

Timber bookshelves look nice. Melamine ones come in a kit you can self assemble. Their shelves don't bend over time under the weight of the books.

Hi,. Thanks for taking the trouble to write and explain about the dresser/entertainment unit. I agree, I too would use it as a dresser/entertainment unit. Specially since I notice that the drawers are rather deep as against the shallow ones that are available right now,. I too have moved into a brand new apartment close to the city and prefer white as it makes the place look larger. You can add colour with your accessories like colored vases. I have managed to stick to gloss white with a touch of black on my cabinets. EnJoy decorating your new apartment. Best wishes to you too.

Hi Katrina, I really love the horizontal wood panelling I think it's a great feature and from the look of it dark beams with upstairs floor timber on show. If this was my room I would likely make a feature of the wall panels and work around that. I find that because of all the dark, heavy timber the panelling is getting a bit lost (I lived in a house like this in Eltham many years ago and at the time loved it...but it's a bit dated these days) As I can't make out the layout of the room my suggestions are based solely on the picture you have provided. My first suggestion is to sand the beams back to their natural wood because I feel that the darkness of the beams is competing too heavily with the timber of the rest of the room. I'm thinking something like this: https://au.pinterest.com/pin/520588038153372539/ I would then find a cabinet maker to change the cd shelves and open shelves underneath to match the cupboards already in place and put in a continuous benchtop along the top of the cupboards. I would then extend the top shelf to match the other two long shelves and replace the baseboard so it is continuous. I would then ask the cabinetmaker to make more streamlined cupboard doors as I find the vertical lines in the current doors detract from the wall panelling. https://au.pinterest.com/pin/353814114454459992/ or if your cabinetmaker has some clever friends maybe something like this: https://au.pinterest.com/pin/518265869604062708/ I would also remove the light fitting poking out of the left of the picture. I don't know what colour carpet you intend to have laid so it is difficult to suggest a colour palette however I am a huge fan of charcoal and timber: https://au.pinterest.com/pin/406168460122166906/ I would paint the back wall only in charcoal much like the colour above to give a sense of depth. All books would be on the shelves. I'm sorry to say that the ducks would sadly have to be ditched. The bench would be used to hold that gorgeous clock and some of those special pictures that you have on show. Good luck, I hope I have been helpful :D