A well-designed shelf can really make a
beautiful statement in a room but it also
tells a story of who you are.
Today I want to talk about how I like to
style a shelf. Let's get started.
When you're considering what kind of shelf
to use in your room, consider what you
want to put on the shelf.
Shelves like this can be some of the most
challenging to style because they're
really long and really tall.
So the temptation is to fill the space
but then it ends up looking cluttered.
So here we want to use large objects and
less of them. If you're wanting to
display something like family photos or
family mementos and use more of them,
consider having a shelf that is less
tall and less long and that way you
can put things in it and it just provides
more visual balance.
It's important to lay out everything you
have for your shelves.
That way you have a good overview of the
different size, texture and colour of the
things you have and you can easily grab
what you need as your styling your
shelves. So now let's start putting
things on our shelves.
So to start with I like to put the larger
items on the shelves first, or the
visually heavy items.
Something like this that's tall – I like
to layer something long and narrow in
front of it. So I've stacked these books
tall and long like
this. But as I stand back, I realize
that directly underneath them the art is
stacked in the same way.
Tall and long. So what I can do is just
move it over here so that we don't have
two visual shapes
stacked right on top of the other.
So books are basically an essential
for styling shelves.
They can stack and you can put things
on top of them. So separately these items
would be too small for the shelves but
together it creates enough visual
weight. When I step back though I'm
looking at the spine of this book and I
don't love how colourful it
is. It just draws too much attention I
think, so we can turn books
around. However, I feel in this scenario
you either have to do with all the books
or none of the books.
So I'm going to keep it
like this and I'm just going to switch
this book out.
But it is something to consider, the
colour of the spines of the book, and
also I chose this book for the top
because it is in really good contrast and
it just makes this beautiful case stand
out.
Once you styled your shelf it's worth
considering the value that you've just
put into it. Books, candles and other
ordinary decorative items will already be
included as personal property under your
home insurance policy. But keep in mind
that certain special items like fine art
or collectibles won't necessarily be
included and you may need to purchase
additional coverage for those.
And finally, when you're installing a new
shelf make sure you follow the
manufacturer's instructions to make sure
it's properly secured and it can't cause
property damage or injury if it might
fall. For information visit
Squareoneinsurance.com.
So I'm just finishing up and I'm standing
back and looking at the shelves and I'm
just looking for balance in
colour, shapes and visual weight.
What I'm noticing is that I've got both
the plants on this side, so what I'm
going to do is I'm just going to swap out
this plant and stack of books,
with this stack of books.
This is the den. And in here we chose to
display more personal objects like family
photos and their book collection.
You'll notice that the shelves are blue.
And so I didn't display any blue objects
. Like in the other room, I didn't display
any baskets because it's the same colour
as the colour of the wood.
We want there to be contrast so that the
objects we are displaying really
standard. Now that we're done you can see
that I've dispersed the items equally.
We have an even disbursement of the heavy
larger objects and the colour and the
books – the groupings.
That way nothing stands out on its own but
it creates a unified look.
Resist the temptation to evenly
place your items on your shelf.
You want to keep them in groupings.
This item didn't require a grouping
because it's large and dark and it holds
its weight on its own.
The glass vases don't hold as much visual
weight because they're clear even though
they're large. So you want to group your
items so you can avoid a cluttered look.
Now it's your turn. Use the tips and
techniques we talked about today to style
your shelves. Thanks for watching.
See you next time.