It’s so much fun when a new crop of cookbooks comes out each season. We race to snap up our favorites and pore over the pages of evocative pictures and ingredient lists. Ah, but what to do with your collection? You know, the one that keeps growing and growing? It’s a mystery that many of us cookbook devotées struggle with, especially if you have a compact home kitchen. Do you store them in the library, or the room where you keep all your novels, biographies, and how-to books? Or do you keep them in the kitchen, so they’re handy? 

We looked to some recent designs featuring Semihandmade fronts to help you evaluate your options and hopefully find a clever cookbook storage solution that works for you.

Create a Book Nook

Here’s a cozy cookbook storage solution: a framed nook in the beverage bar area. Faced with a little space that wasn’t big enough for an appliance, such as a microwave, designer Velinda Hellen added a custom book nook. We love the way framing it in honey-toned maple creates a contrast with the ocean blue cabinets. Of course, if you’re a serious cookbook lover, a nook won’t hold your entire collection. But it does give you a place to show off the ones you treasure the most.

Freestanding Cookbooks

We love this kitchen by designer Anita Yokota—the first project with our new BOXI by Semihandmade cabinets—for so many reasons. There’s the vertical zellige subway tile, the freshwhite cabinets with sleek gold hardware, and the lovely symmetry created by mirrored open shelving flanking the range. It’s a perfect place for displaying a small stack of cookbooks that add some literary flair to the shelf.

Cookbook Vignette

A good vignette is always welcome. When designer Natalie Myers renovated this circa 1955 home, she took the mid-century style into the kitchen with warm woods and color blocking. She creates space for some personal objects, including a vintage camera, fruit-shaped trinkets, and books with a little shelving unit under the island.

Books & Beverages

There’s nothing like sitting down with a good book and a warm soothing beverage. Whether you’re a fan of Kenyan cold brew or matcha, you may be thinking of adding a beverage or breakfast bar to your kitchen. We say go for it, and be sure to add some floating shelves to hold some of your cute little cookbooks while you’re at it, like design studio LL Design Co did here.

Surprise Shelf

Designer Annette Vartanian of Vintage Splendor wanted a modern kitchen that fit her mid-century home in Pasadena. Semihandmade’s Classic Walnut cabinet fronts paired with a white tile give this space a calm and collected look. Leaving the door off the end cabinet offers a fun surprise—and a welcome pop of color.

Over the Window

The details and energy in this blue Shaker kitchen by Modular Interiors Design Group feels never ending. Can’t you just see it filled with children and dogs? We love the way the designers maximized space, and still found room for cookbooks with the long shelf over the top of the main kitchen window. It’s a valuable space that many of us forget to use.

The Kitchen Counter

This is one of the most inviting kitchens we’ve seen, with the combination of white counters and walls, taupe cabinets, and warm accents from brass hardware and olive wood accessories. Laura Grieg and Sara Richards, the design duo behind The Habitat Collective, devised a kitchen that has all the crispness of a black-and-white kitchen, along with quite a bit of warmth. The curated stack of cookbooks in the corner fits perfectly with the aesthetic.