DH and I installed built in bookshelves a few weeks ago. I originally wanted to style them all nice & bloggy (ha) but the fact is that we have a ton of books and we really need them to be functional. I did add a few meaningful things (a favorite wedding gift, some art from our honeymoon, a vase DH's great aunt brought back from Italy in the early '40s) but it's mostly books We also changed out the carpet for strand woven bamboo, but you can't really see the floors in these too well.
The beadboard backing is painted a pale blue to match a nearby side table.
I'm really happy with it though! Thanks for looking