About Our Team

Our Story

Best Bookshelf Australia was born from a simple frustration: finding reliable, honest advice about bookshelves in Australia was nearly impossible. When our founder, Sarah Mitchell, moved into her first Sydney apartment in 2019, she spent weeks researching bookshelves only to end up with a wobbly, poorly-constructed unit that couldn't hold more than a dozen paperbacks. That disappointing experience sparked an idea.

Sarah, a former interior designer with a passion for functional furniture, started documenting her research process. She measured load-bearing capacity, tested assembly difficulty, compared particleboard density, and photographed real-world installations. What started as personal notes quickly became a comprehensive database of bookshelf reviews and recommendations.

By 2020, Best Bookshelf Australia officially launched as a dedicated resource for Australian homeowners. We understand that buying furniture online can be daunting—dimensions in photos are often misleading, "solid wood" sometimes means thin veneer over MDF, and customer reviews can be inconsistent. Our mission is to cut through the confusion with detailed, hands-on evaluations that Australian buyers can actually trust.

Today, our small but dedicated team includes furniture enthusiasts, DIY assembly experts, and interior styling specialists. We've evaluated over 200 bookshelves across every style from Scandinavian minimalism to industrial chic, budget flat-packs to heirloom-quality hardwood pieces. We test weight capacity with actual book collections (ranging from pocket paperbacks to heavy art books), assess assembly complexity using only included tools, and verify that advertised dimensions match reality.

What makes us different? We don't accept payment for positive reviews. We purchase products ourselves or work with transparent disclosure when items are provided for testing. We photograph real installations in real Australian homes—not studio settings. And we're genuinely obsessed with the details that matter: shelf depth for oversized books, adjustable shelf spacing, anti-tip anchoring systems, and whether those pre-drilled holes actually align properly.

We're proud to have helped thousands of Australian families find bookshelves that genuinely work for their spaces. Whether you're furnishing a tiny studio apartment in Melbourne, a sprawling family home in Perth, or a coastal retreat in Queensland, we understand the unique challenges of Australian living. From flat-pack delivery logistics to humidity considerations for certain timber finishes, we consider every factor that matters to local buyers.

Our recommendations are always based on genuine testing and research. When we say a bookshelf is sturdy, we mean it. When we flag assembly difficulties, we've experienced them firsthand. This commitment to honesty has earned us the trust of our readers—and we never take that responsibility lightly.