The Perfect Shelfscape
I don’t know about you but I love seeing those images on Instagram of shelves styled to within an inch of their lives, it’s part of why I became an interior designer – the opportunity to showcase an ensemble of objects and books, perfectly curated to be just right. It can be such a tricky thing to get right but when you’ve got it, the results can be breathtaking!
Here’s how I do it:
Start with nothing – You need to get a clear idea of what space you’ve got so clear everything off your shelves. This also gives you an excuse to give them a good old dust as well! Starting with a blank canvas is absolutely key.
Take stock – Get everything you want to put on the shelves together, this will help you to get to grips with exactly what you’re working with. You can start thinking about items you’d like to have together, which things are really important and need to be highlighted. It will also help you to see if you’ve got anything missing – perhaps all of your things are similar heights and you need a bit of variety? Maybe you need some different textures? Getting everything together will help you see what you need.
Start with an anchor – It’s time to dive in! It can be scary but sometimes you have to just take the bull by the horns and go for it, have a rough idea of where you’d like to put some things but also be aware you’ll probably want to move things around. Start with some bigger things, these will create anchors that you can style smaller vignettes around. This could be something like a piece of art, a beautiful jar or bowl, or something for storage. You want to try and spread these out to make sure the overall effect isn’t too bulky in any one area.
Pad out – This bit can be hard but it’s time to add the medium and smaller pieces in to create those important vignettes. Don’t space everything evenly as this will look odd, you want things to look as effortless as possible.
Books/Magazines – Probably the most important things you’re going to include on those shelves! Books and magazines are so versatile, they can be stacked vertically and flanked with bookends, you can stack them horizontally and pop something like a bowl on top, you could have a single, particularly beautiful one with its cover facing out. You could also include a book cradle on one of the middle shelves, having a gorgeous photography book open on a page you love really gives a shelf life and shows a bit of your personality too.
Keep it low – Sometimes we all have things that we need to keep on our shelves that aren’t particularly beautiful, like a printer. If you have the luxury of some doors for part of your bookshelves then you can tuck it away, if not keep it on a lower shelf that is below eye line. Including some storage basket for lower shelves can be a good idea to tuck away any bits and bobs that you don’t want on display but need to have around, perhaps printer ink and things like that. Choose something in a natural material like wicker or rattan for a timeless look.
A note on trends - If you look up anything to do with shelf styling on Pinterest or Instagram I know you’re inevitably going to see pictures of books turned backwards, designers and stylists do this purely for aesthetic reasons - it creates a tonal effect as all the pages are varying shades of white and if designers love anything it’s a nice tonal effect. Whilst I get why designers and stylists do this I would never personally style a shelf this way as it’s so impractical in reality. Imagine trying to find your favourite novel without being able to see any of the spines!!
