Lane Swaniawski
And establishing harmony and balance in your design brings greater peace to your larger space. If you’re rearranging shelves in your existing space, however, the first step to smart shelf styling is clearing out any items that currently reside there.
As you clear things from your shelf, evaluate each piece, and think like Marie Kondo: Is this something that brings you joy?
Any books or baubles that have remained in your space as a result of decor inertia — rather than love — are worth retiring.
Thinking about the confines of the space and how your items relate to it will help you begin to piece together your styled shelves in broad strokes. These could be baskets, sculptures, framed artwork, potted plants, or stacked cocktail table books.
A children’s bookshelf might feature shadow boxes with beloved Lego creations preserved in each frame. A minimalist study may have a stone sculpture in one corner and a fiddle leaf fig in the opposing cubby.
A mid-century modern family room could use framed pop art and hulking bronze bookends to ground its corners.
These items need not be physically heavy, but they should have a strong visual presence that lends gravitas to the shelves’ ends. Introducing items with different heights, textures, weights, and significance lends visual interest to your shelves. In the spirit of variety, there are a number of types of elements we commonly use when styling clients’ shelves.
Tall items draw attention from across the room, while stouter decorative objects beckon viewers closer to get a better look. Create visual peaks and valleys across each row, with short and tall items interspersed.
Create visual peaks and valleys across each row, with short and tall items interspersed.
Group similar items together—like a trio of tiny succulents or a collection of beach glass and shells.
Embroidered wall covering behind custom built-ins in Acampora Interiors’ Watch Hill Oceanside Retreat. Embrace contradictory textures in your design, like a spiky pine cone juxtaposed with smooth balls of moss or a slick glass vases with rough, natural agate.
Use your shelf to share family mementos, from school photos to a wedding shadow box, shelves are a perfect place to celebrate those misty watercolor memories. Use your shelf to share family mementos, from school photos to a wedding shadow box, shelves are a perfect place to celebrate those misty watercolor memories. Items that transport you back to a particularly memorable trip are worth showcasing on your styled shelves.
Arranging books by color has always been an interior design trick, but it’s experienced a renaissance of late, in large part because of Instagram accounts like The Home Edit.
Color coordination is an elegant way to introduce order to your bookshelves, particularly when your library is sizeable. Arranging books by color has always been an interior design trick, but it’s experienced a renaissance of late, in large part because of Instagram accounts like The Home Edit.
Color coordination is an elegant way to introduce order to your bookshelves, particularly when your library is sizeable. While we traditionally think of displaying books vertically on shelves, horizontal stacking is an option, too!
And not just for chunky coffee table books—introducing smaller titles into your horizontal stacks adds visual interest. Choose planters with proper drainage so your plants don’t drown and your shelving doesn’t get soggy.
