How To Style | Book Shelves — Harris at Home | Canadian Home Decor and Lifestyle Blog

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How To Style | Book Shelves

A lot of people don’t know where to start when decorating or styling rooms. This post will give you some tips & tricks on how to beautifully style your shelves! Whether it’s a built-in, bookcase or floating shelf they all have the potential to look inspiring and aesthetically pleasing.

Pick Decorative Items

Books, are obviously the number one item incorporated into the shelf design but you can add other fun items to make the shelf more interesting. Common decorative items that work well on shelves are faux plants, boxes, photography, art, candles or book ends. In my design above, I also included vintage vases that I found thrifting, a vintage film camera & a cool teacup and saucer. You can use any items that you find beautiful or meaningful such as things you’ve picked up travelling, inherited or special photographs.

Pick a Colour Theme

I find it’s best to pick a colour theme, that way it will look cohesive and pleasing to the eye. In my home for this built-in shelf, I chose Pink, Black, White & Metallic Gold. It’s more cost effective to choose your colour theme after you have complied all of your decorative items together as you can go based off what you already have. A tip for making your colours vibe, is to sporadically place like-colours. For example, don’t place all the pink items in one spot, it’ll look off. Spread the colours out evenly so when you look at the shelf as a whole, it will be complimentary.

Finding Your Style

It might take a while to get everything exactly “right”. Here are some tips on getting your style perfect:

Books: Place the books in different directions, vertically and horizontally and space them out. Factor in the colours of the books. Removing the book jackets can help you create a more neutral look as underneath the book is normally a solid colour.

Layer: Layering art in front of displayed books and placing decorative items on top of books creates depth on the shelf.

Mix it up: Using different textures and tones will create an interesting look. Move around items until you figure out what works best for you!