Most of us have at least a few open shelves in our homes. Open shelving is a simple and easy way to give your room a chic and eclectic feel while surrounding yourself with the things that tell your story and aesthetic. While open shelves in living room tend to be more on beautiful styling than utilitarian needs, which we normally place our favourite décor items, books and collections.
However, getting the décor arrangement right on your shelves is sometimes seems easier than doing it, and most people are torn between what to display and how to decorate them.
Here we’ve got some tips to step up your styling game and make your shelves look Insta-worthy.
1. Pick a Color Palette
Just like with most things related to interior design, it is important to have a clear and consistent colour palette when styling shelves. A colour scheme will help everything on your shelves come together and look effortlessly stylish.
Pick a colour palette that plays well with the rest of your room décor, to add balance and depth to your open shelf styling. It’s best to keep the colour palette simple or stick with neutral hues – beige, black, white, grey.
You can also choose two or three shades and repeating them will give your displays an intentional, pulled-together look. As long as there is a general overarching theme to tie the look together, colour palette or number or shades doesn't have to be so strict. Remember to avoid using too much colour that can ruin the overall look of your open shelves.
2. Layer Up: Vary Height, Texture, Objects
When arranging items on your shelves, make sure that the objects vary in height for a larger visual impact. An arrangement is more aesthetically pleasing when it contains a variety of sizes, shapes, textures and colours, all working in harmony and balanced throughout the shelves.
If you place everything too symmetrically, your shelves will look boring. Too many little things around your shelves will look cluttered, while too many big things will make your shelves look heavy. Therefore, variety here is key. You can try mixing up big and little things as well as things at different heights.
Add some height to your décor items, so that your shelves look more "collected" and interesting, rather than just having a bunch of objects that are similar placed together. You can place whether a piece of art, vase, candlesticks, sculpture pieces, or something that draws your eye upward. You can let some items stand-alone and build out others into a small collection or grouping. It’s essential to vary the scale to avoid a mishmash of small knickknacks.
3. Mixing and Matching
Items make more of an impact in a group, make sure to group items strategically to avoid making the shelves look too uniform. That's where groups or clusters of objects come in to play, basically mix it up.
Since our eyes naturally seek to group similar items, so try to display complementary shapes together for more impact. Grouping items of similar colours or materials will also help to create a cohesive arrangement. You can mix together texture, size, and tone, but be sure to keep to a singular colour palette or style.
Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box and add something a bit quirky or items you think don’t necessarily “match”. As long as you come up with a mixed and matched look you love, then you’re doing it right because there is no “one” answer.
4. Aim for Balance
A mixture of different objects makes an interesting display, but it’s important to get the balance right. Because shelves offer a lot of space to fill, balance and visual weight play a big part in getting it right. Creating balance is all about projecting a larger visual impact through decorative layers, your shelves may appear crammed and cluttered without balance.
When styling shelves, large sculpture pieces can definitely stand-alone. While smaller sculptural items should be grouped in pairs or serve as an accent item to a vignette or stack of books. Your shelves should also have symmetry that draw your eye upward and downward for better visual impact.
The best way to start is picking the larger items first and then complementing them with smaller, intricate items to fill up space. Make sure your shelves are not so crowded, and your decor will look lost in an empty cube.
5. Rule of Three/ Odd Numbers
This is perhaps the easiest tips of home design element. The eye likes odd numbers. For some reason, our eyes tend to like groupings of three items or odd numbers like 5 or 7. Grouping different decor items in odd numbers together can make your open shelf decor more visually appealing. The key here is to play with texture, design and dimension, to add depth and interest to the shelves.