Creative Shelves Decorating Ideas

A well-styled shelf can make our room look interesting, personalized, and chic.

Shelves are an integral part of the modern home decor. They provide a perfect way to display varied items from framed photos and paintings, books, artwork to utility pieces. Additionally, they keep all our things organized and off the floor. Today there are shelves available in plastic, acrylic, plywood, timber, sunmica and even wrought iron. Let’s find out more about shelves and their life…

1. Ladder shelves

Ladder shelves are great for modern interiors as they can have an interesting visual appeal and can add a modern, rustic or vintage touch to our space. The great advantage of such shelves is that they save a lot of valuable space and combine creativity and functionality. When we have a limited space, the best way to use it efficiently is the vertical way.

Ladder shelves can be used in every room. Here are some ideas:

• They can be successfully used as a bathroom furniture piece as a place for towels.
• A small bedroom will benefit from using a ladder shelf for books.
• In kid’s room such shelves, with an addition of few storage baskets, will be a good way to organize the toys.
• In our kitchen space, they create a fabulous opportunity to showcase dishes and china.
• If we decorate the shelves with fresh flowers, beautiful statuettes and small paintings, we will have an attractive decorative element in our living room.

2. Clever and chic ways to display books on a shelf

Books are the main objects on our shelves and are the easiest way to create a look. If we have a sizable book collection, it’s worth taking the time to organize them so that we can find whatever we’re looking for. Let’s take a look at some of the best methods to choose from:

• Alphabetical: This is the most obvious method, and probably the most reliable.
• Genre: We can divide our “library” into the following sections: Fiction, Mystery, Novels, Science Fiction, etc.
• Mix up the book placement: We can play around with the placement of our books and try a mix of vertical and horizontal arrangements. Some books can be piled vertically and others can be laying flat. If we have a book with a gorgeous cover, it’s worth to consider displaying it alone.
• Make a rainbow: Our books can be arranged by color. This is a bit controversial method, but unless we have a collection of 3,000+ books, it shouldn’t make it any more difficult to find the books we’re looking for.
• Reserving a shelf for our favourites: No matter which system we choose, we have the option of leaving one special shelf. It should be the most visible one where we will keep our signed copies, first editions, or the books that have changed our life.

3. Glass shelves

Glass shelves add a contemporary look to our home. There are many reasons people love glass shelves. One of them is their appearance – they are transparent, they seamlessly blend into the space, creating a light and airy feel in any room they inhabit. They keep darker interiors from being too heavy and they reinforce the brightness in crisp, white spaces.

4. Floating shelves

Floating shelves are shelves that have no visible mounting or supports showing and look as if they are “floating” on the wall. They can stand alone or we can group several together to create an impressive visual impact. The great advantages of floating shelves are simplicity, elegance, and low cost. Despite their airy appearance, they are quite strong as they are attached to the walls by adding screws to the wall that are made from the very durable material. We can place heavy objects on these shelves without the fear of collapsing. For some people, floating shelves mean less storage, but they create more living space, which is also very important.

Tip: It can be a gorgeous idea to choose the shelves in the same color as the walls of our room – we get a visual illusion that all the items on the shelf float in the air, without a contact with any surface.

5. Displaying art on the shelves

Too many pictures, too little space? If we enjoy collecting artwork, it can be a real challenge to find room for all of it. However, there’s more than one way to display art, and walls aren’t always involved. We can try incorporating pictures into the display of books or if our shelves are open, we can even hang pictures and paintings on the wall within the confines of the furnishing. Or why not hang art on the bookshelf itself? Displaying art shows our style and it’s a great way to add color to our shelves.

6. Illuminated shelves

We can take our storage one step further by adding light to our shelves. Illuminated shelving is a dramatic way to increase visual interest to display areas. There are a few options to choose from when it comes to lighting up our shelves. The first option can be installing recessed flat lights underneath shelving to receive a glow over surfaces. Strip lighting is another option – we just have to attach it to the underside of our shelf to create an illuminated feature. We can choose between a traditional white glow or a fun color changing option.

Storage space is something almost everyone yearns for. Shelves not only provide a room with a place to put our things but when mounted correctly they can look fun, sleek and even a bit sophisticated. So what are you waiting for, get shelved!