How to Style Shelves Like a Pro
I recently moved and had some new shelves to decorate, so I wanted to share my 3 floating shelf styling ideas with you. Watch the video below to see these shelves come to life, or keep reading below. You’ll know how to style shelves like a pro by the end of this post.
let’s get started
First, we will empty what I have up here and clean off the surfaces. I have 2 wooden floating shelves and a quartz countertop to work with. I love using the Method brand. I have the wood cleaner and the general surface cleaner, which I use on my quartz countertops.
shop your own home
Don’t feel like you need to go on a shopping spree to decorate a new shelf in your home. I shopped my own home for the accessories I’m using in these examples.
If you go hunting around your house with a specific theme or color scheme in mind, you might be surprised with how many items you can find that go well together.
All these goodies were in a hutch in the entryway. They didn’t have a home…until now.
style 1 // Neutral & Classic
For this first style, we are going to do a timeless English-library feel by grouping similarly bound books and mixing in a few vintage finds.
I am trying to keep things within a neutral color scheme here. There are a lot of browns and grey’s on the stone of the fireplace, so I am picking that up with bronze and brown items.
If you don’t want to do neutral, you could switch it up and look for items that have whatever color that you gravitate towards in your home.
A little greenery can really brighten things up, especially if you are going with a neutral color scheme. I took a glass vase and used some moss filler I found at Dollar Tree.
If you don’t have enough items in your color scheme, you can try wrapping books with fabric or paper to give them a consistent look.
Here is how this first neutral and classic look came out.
style 2 // functional space
On to styling idea #2. Since these shelves are right in between the kitchen and living room, I’m going to create this style as a functional space.
Depending on where the shelves are in your house, your shelf may have different needs.
I think this area would be great with a box to hold remote controls for the television. And also a nice display space for putting dishes and glasses, so it can be kind of a little mini bar area.
When creating your vignette for each shelf, to get the scale and height right, it may help to think of each grouping of items as a triangle. This will give each shelf the correct proportions of some tall and some lower items. Don’t feel like you have to center everything, just play around until it looks good to your eye.
I used these plates that look like paintings to add some color and texture by leaning them on the wall as a backdrop for this shelf styling.
Another idea would be to hang some paintings and lean others in front of them so you could have only artwork and pictures here on the shelves. Or you could use bottles of varying height on one shelf.
Here is how this “bar area” shelf style came out.
style 3 // celebrate the seasons
Shelves are a great place to highlight decor for each season. You can easily switch things out and it keeps all the seasonal elements grouped in one location so they have more of an impact, rather than being scattered around the house.
Try swapping out elements to reflect the time of year. You could do Fall or fresh flowers for Spring, Christmas decor, Easter…whatever holidays and seasons you find joy in celebrating! Bring all that decor out and go to town on those shelves for each holiday!
I recently did a bunch of Spring crafts and DIY’s, so I used a lot of those to put together this grouping.
I love how light and bright and cheerful this came out!
If you liked these tips on styling shelves, then you may be inspired to fill your shelves with some DIY’s! Check out the suggested posts below!
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How about some Target Dollar Spot crafts and Dollar Tree coastal transformations. We’ll be putting together tiered tray miniatures to decorate our little coastal vignette.