For today’s quarantine home challenge, I am inviting you to restyle your bookshelf. I know that styling a bookshelf can be tricky, so I have some tips below to guide you in this process and to make it fun.

When styling shelves, I have to step back, look at all the pieces and rework the items around a couple of times before I am happy with the overall look. The two key things to consider when styling shelves are color and scale. The biggest mistake I often notice on shelves is the lack of pieces of different scales. In order to make items stand out, I like to play with scale. To me, incorporating a mix of large and smaller items is essential to a balanced design.

ITEMS

First things first, gathering the items. I like to use a mix of framed artwork, photographs, vases and bowls, decorative items, books, and some greenery. Initially, I place all of my items on a table and scan through the group together. If I feel they don’t work well on a table, I know they won’t work well on the bookshelf either. This exercise saves me time during the process of styling the chosen pieces.

LAYOUT

When I style bookshelves in kids’ rooms, I love all the colors the books bring to the space. But in this office space, the colors from the books were just not working for me. My solution was to flip the books around in order to keep the neutral color palette flowing.

Besides working with large and small items together, it is also important to play with the height of the elements. I’ve placed a smaller frame on a stack of books to achieve the right height I needed on one of the shelves.

I had to rework this layout four times, but I think it is now a great point of interest in this office space.

If you don’t have a bookshelf to style, I suggest you style your nightstand. And if you have open shelving in the kitchen, this challenge is for you! Have fun and keep safe!

I will be posting another challenge tomorrow. Xo, Patchi

PS: come say hi to me here!