HOW TO STYLE SHELF DECOR How To Style a Bookshelf & Built In EASILY

When decorating shelves, the first thing you want to do is completely clear the shelves so that way you have a clean slate to work with and when you're decorating you can slowly add things in without starting with something that's too cluttered or too much to look at. So that's what I'm gonna do right now. I'm gonna backtrack and show you how I go from this to this. So now that I have my clear slate and the number one thing that I learned is that with shelves there's not necessarily a focal point, right? Because it all works harmoniously. I think the easiest way to start with decorating a shelf is by starting with a focal point that you can then build the rest of the shelves out. So for that focal point what you can do is you can take a look at your shelves, find out where the halfway point is, so for me it would be like right here, and then go up a little bit, so on the next shelf, and then start with your focal point or item right there. So for my focal point I'm gonna actually work with a large frame because I do like working with frames on shelves. I think they just look very nice and very harmonious with everything else. So I'm going to start with my frame and like I said I'm going to put it here and a little bit up. So now that I have my frame up the next thing that I want to do is I want to layer in front of the frame. So I'm going to pick out a larger vessel like a vase or a pot and I'm going to layer that in front of the frame. So that's another tip when styling shelves is to layer in front of the items that you're working with, but I'm specifically going to do a white pot because I'll explain in just a second. So I have my focal point, I layered in front of it with the pot, and then my next tip for you is to work diagonally and repeat something, whether it's you know repeating the vase or repeating the color, and for me I kind of hit both points. I worked with a white canister with some pattern on it and then up top I put a simple white vase. So I had both the color and they're both similar in what they are and I worked it diagonally. I have a little triangle going on and the next thing I'll probably do is put something right here. So then I have that diagonal effect going on with the shelves. I'm going to put that here and now that is complete and of course I'm going to build it out a little bit more. Before I add on to the different clusters that I have going on here, what I'm actually going to do now is fill in the opposite spaces and then we'll see where that leaves us. Okay so just to come back to it a little bit and explain what I've done so far. So I mentioned that I was going to fill in the spaces and what I did was I started filling in with books and books are rectangular, they're horizontal, they could be vertical, so you can mix and match how you lay your books. The top two shelves I didn't do books but I did something rectangular, something that kind of makes the eye like associate it together without it being the exact same thing because of the shape of it. So I have the hurricane with the candle and then I also have the box up top. So you can kind of get the feeling of how I'm bringing it all together and I'm filling in the spaces. I will say that now that I feel like I got the bulk of the spaces filled, now I can add on some of those smaller little details. So for example whether it's plants, additional books, etc. Basically my goal is to flesh out the design and bring it all together, layer things in front and back, etc. So that's what I'll do now and then I'll come back and explain. So now you can see how I kind of built out the clusters a bit more. I added these two small bowls next to the canister. The colors are similar. They work together. I have the plant on top of the books. Always a classic styling technique. Just put something on top of the books. I have them vertical and horizontal here and I think the plant just totally brings them together. Still keeping in mind I have some repetition going on with the plants. I have plant on here, here, and then also up top. So it's not like there's just one plant on one shelf which if that does happen it's totally okay as long as the color or you know etc is like repeated in the space. I think the overall goal is you always want to take a step back and see are the colors repeated anywhere or are they complementing each other or if something just feels too off balance maybe you can just repeat it somewhere else in the shelf styling. Then the other thing that I did was I layered this book back here. So it's not just about putting something on the left side of the shelf and then the right side of the shelf but also what are some pieces either up front, in between, or in the back that you can layer to bring it all together. So I feel like that's what this book does here at the bottom. So that's another thing you can do too is have them brought together. Like this is another perfect example on this shelf. I have the frame next to the pot and next to the hurricane and the frame is the link that is bringing the pot and the hurricane together. I would say the only other pieces that are probably missing here are some personalization. So if I had some frames of family that I could put up here that would be another great one. I just don't have it in this one but I would you know add more books and just incorporate. I don't really have that many books which is why I'm not decorating with as many books as a bookcase should have. The last tip here that I wanted to give is that I wanted to show you how there's plenty of negative space on the shelf so they aren't filled to the brim both horizontally and vertically. There's enough space for all of the items to breathe and for the eye to move around when looking at the shelves and no matter which direction I'm looking at the shelf there's a moment to look at and to appreciate which that's always the goal with decorating. It's not just as a whole but as you step closer are you finding beauty in the small moments that are on the shelves and how did you decorate them to express that beauty. I didn't do anything too crazy up top. I kept it very light and airy up there because I didn't want the shelves to feel too top heavy and if you are going to do anything with like a darker color or maybe a larger vase or anything up top then just ground the shelf system by also incorporating something either darker or heavier larger at the bottom as well. You don't want all of the color or all of your larger pieces to be at the top and not have it grounded down at the bottom as well and with that hopefully this video helped you out definitely comment down below let me know your questions your comments all of the above and if you would like some help and you would love some personal one-on-one design help definitely see the link in my description for my design services and with that I will see you next time bye guys