Styling Tips

How to style your open shelves

We get asked to come in and style open shelving and built-ins for various projects. In addition to client projects, we also have to style for all of our photo shoots. Styling takes some time and planning to achieve your final look but you’ll be very happy with the results. See our styling tips below!

Plan it Out

Taking inventory of what you currently have is key to getting started with styling. Do you have any items that you picked up while traveling, items you were gifted or bought that you just love? That is a good place to start. And if you want to start from scratch and re-fresh your entire space, that works too. The same principles apply that we list below.

Style Tips

1. Decide on a color scheme. Do you want to stick to a more neutral color palette or throw in pops of color?
2. Gather all of your accessories in one location. It’s best to be able to see everything you have to pull from. When everything is laid out, you can also see a potential color theme or grouping of similar items.
3. Group similar colors and group similar items.
4. Analyze what else you may need.

Items to Style With

1. Books
2. Trays
3. Boxes
4. Vases
5. Art
6. Decor Objects

Once you have all of your items gathered, new and old, put them all in one location and start grouping by color and/or type. We typically group in pairs or in groupings of three. When we stack books, we group by the color binding and size. Books are great to also lay flat and place a box, picture frame or decorative object on top. We always start by laying out the larger items and then work our way down each shelf filling in with smaller pieces until we have achieved our vision. One other rule to think about is not to overcrowd your shelf so at the very end, it’s best to take a look at your shelving and make sure it doesn’t have too many items or feel crowded. Less is sometimes more!