Taming Books and Breyers: Five Shelving Ideas For Organizing Books and Horse Models

It is a truth universally acknowledged by bookish horse lovers that a model horse and book enthusiast, when in possession of a new purchase, must be in want of more shelf space.

Somehow, even though you say you don’t need another model horse or book, you still end up coming home from the bargain store with several new novels and a model horse or two. Especially after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when there are too many deals that you just can’t resist.

That was my problem coming home from Black Friday shopping. I had several new books in tow and my Freedom-series Breyer models were starting to run away with me. With 19 models and two Traditional models gracing my shelf, (not to mention seventy-something books) I was tired of looking at my shelf and seeing a somewhat organized chaotic mess on my shelf.

So, today’s article is about five tips for organizing your horse models and books for an aesthetic shelf that is both practical and pretty. And the best part? You don’t have to be highly design-oriented to figure it out!

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#1. Organize By Color

I’ve seen a lot of people organize books by color. I’ve tried it a few times, but I’ve always preferred alphabetical myself (because if you don’t know the color of a book, how do you find it?). However, if you are the type to organize your books by color, why not add in your horse models into the color gradient? A horse stuck between the books looks quite nice when you find the right models.

In this case, I hadn’t meant to organize by color (these are all my non-high fantasy speculative books, organized alphabetically) but when I noticed the color gradient I decided to stick my purple roan model in the middle. She looks quite lovely among the purple books.

#2. Set Up Matching Book and Horse Displays

Sometimes, I’ll have a model that fits the cover of a book. I used to do displays only, but I kept removing books from my display for reading. So this time, I chose only the books I know I won’t be rereading for a while and set up displays as according. I actually own the old Black Beauty and Ginger models, so I set them on top of the anthology stack (which has a few excerpts from Black Beauty) as well as my 1954 copy.

Even if the model doesn’t match up exactly (The Guardian Herd is a pegasus series, and I don’t own a pegasus model), a model that’s close enough to the horse on the cover still makes an aesthetic pairing).

#3. Make Use of Barns

When I was fifteen, I bought a wooden Breyer barn and went all out in customizing it, as you can see in the photo. Little metal ties, popsicle sticks glued on for texture– I even added shavings, bucket hooks, and made rubber mats from black foam sheets. Like I said, all out.

And since I stopped playing with my model horses, this barn has been gathering dust in storage.

Until I realized it was the perfect height for my miscellaneous paperbacks.

I was even able to fit my Phantom and Misty models in there, along with their namesake series. The gap between the barn and the books on either side made the perfect little nook for two of my Freedom-series foal models.

So, if you have an old model horse barn you don’t use, consider turning it into a book barn.

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#4. Just Set Them On Top

If you’re like me and obsessively collect extensive book series like Saddle Club or Thoroughbred, then you might have a lot of level shelf space. This is the perfect place to just set a model on top. In these cases, I tried to pair steeds with genres. For instance, a lot of my high fantasy novels feature Percheron-type warhorses, so I put my Brabant draft model on top of the high fantasy books (along with a few small rabbits, because my Green Ember books need some rabbit representation too). My Silky Sullivan model went on top of the book series about horse racing, and my Saddle Club books got a pony on top.

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#5. Mix and Match

If you aren’t sure what would work best for a section, then just play around with the setup until you find something that works. Try a geometrical stairstep look, like I used for my equine nonfiction, or use them as bookends like I did for all of my borrowed books. Sprinkle small models around the shelves, hide foals in nooks, or set a steed marching along in front of a line of paperbacks. Ultimately, it’s up to you how you want to organize your models, and if a setup works, go for it!

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There is no wrong way to organize your books and horse models, and whether you decide to do everything I did or nothing at all, I still hope that this article gave you some ideas on shelving your books and horses together in a way that fits your organizational style and decorating tastes.

If you have done this before with your books and horse models, share about it in the comments below! What did you do to clean up your shelf space? What is your preferred shelving method?