Stephanie Kraus Designs

Eight Secrets to Styling your Bookshelves!

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1) When styling your bookcase be sure to include elements that are meaningful to you. On a more practical note, make sure you measure the shelves to be sure what you want to include will actually fit the space.

 

In the below version (which the owner kept in place) the teapot and cups were a gift from someone special. The silver plate and crystal glasses were her mothers. And a few of the very old books were her dad's.

2) Should you paint or paper the back of your shelves?

The answer is yes when you want to add color to a room or to pop the items placed on your shelves. When I came for the consultation, I noticed a lot of the items my client wanted to include were white so I advised her to paint the shelves a  soft gray. 

Here are more examples here...



here



decorpad.com

here

3) Place the larger and/or most important items on the shelves first.

You can see my work midway through below. I placed some bigger items in the center and some off-center and just played around with them as I went.

4) Place like colors and groupings together.

I layered the clients glasses together and also similar color books together.

6) Need extra storage? Use baskets. This client didn't need extra storage. She placed most of her books behind closed doors. But if she wanted to add baskets I would add them to the  four bottom shelves.


These are some of my faves...

wisteria

something more rustic?


wisteria

Or more of a sophisticated office look?

restoration hardware

7) After you place your large items on the shelves start filling in with books. Make sure you stack them both vertically and horizontally. Don't like the color of the binding? Just turn the books around so the pages are facing out.

8) Edit, Edit, Edit. Make sure there is room for your eye to rest and that there is some space to breathe on the shelf so you can really notice the important book titles, items and other goodies!

Here are my three looks again in case you missed them....

here

here

 

 



And the winner winner chicken dinner ...

Thanks for reading and have fun styling!

Do you have any secrets to styling that you'd like to share? Please do!!!

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sorry  I think an email when out earlier that wasn't meant too! oops!!!