Shelf Life: How to Style the Perfect Shelf
Curating your shelves is not as easy as it seems. To help you achieve the perfect style to substance ratio, here is our best practise Liberty guide.
Read more
Shelf Life: How to Style the Perfect Shelf
Curating your shelves is not as easy as it seems. To help you achieve the perfect style to substance ratio, here is our best practice Liberty guide.
By: Charlotte Olby
With spring on the horizon, now might be the perfect time to get a head start on giving your home a new season refresh. But if you're not ready to dive all in with a thorough spring revamp, may we suggest dipping your toes in with something smaller, like shelf styling?
Strictly speaking, shelf styling is a skill that involves more heart than head, which means more art than science. We can’t give you an exact recipe on how to style a shelf to perfection, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t key ingredients to consider when designing a pleasing display in your home. Let us show you the Liberty way to style shelves.
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Take Stock
Make an inventory of what you’re working with. Start by envisioning which pieces you want to place together, and how you want to create cohesion. Approach the shelf (whether that’s one long open shelf or an entire bookcase) as a whole zone – giving the eye some obvious focal points, and places to rest: aka low visual moments. This technique helps your space to look curated and thought out – not piled high with everything you own.
Next, you want to begin grouping your objects by size, styling your largest items first to create anchors to work around. Art and picture frames are perfect for adding height and warmth to layer upon. PSTR Studio’s Dance Like it's Friday Print by Maria Murphy will work to inject some life into your decor. Pick out accent colours from your chosen art and distribute the tones throughout your shelf-scape.
TIP: it helps to place all of your similar objects at the same time so you can see the common thread in your pieces, and consider what you might want to add (e.g style all your artwork, stack-up your books, then add ornaments).
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Group Strategically
When styling your shelves, create groupings with medium and smaller objects to fill in the spaces between larger pieces. Stacking books is one of our go-to’s as they have a lot of visual weight, so try playing around with styling them both horizontally and vertically, and adding personality with quirky bookends like L'Objet's Lito Bookends or a large vase for contrast. Magazines also work well for this too, giving you the perfect excuse to get out archive copies of The Liberty Book you just aren’t ready to part with yet! Breaking up hard lines with more organic items in your separate vignettes helps to introduce variety – a shelf that wows is one packed with different elements that get people talking.
TIP: when grouping items, always work to a Rule Of 3 for a fool-proof formula. Items arranged in odd numbers are more visually appealing to the human eye as they tend to look more dynamic.
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Prioritise Balance
It’s important to give the objects on your shelves room to breathe – sometimes less is more. Low visual moments don’t need to be empty space however, try breaking up brighter tones with a more subdued piece such as Astier de Villatte’s Shield Box. These juxtapositions add depth and stop your shelves from looking too chaotic to the eye. Balance is also key when considering the height and scale of your items. To achieve harmony when curating your shelves, you want to stagger your larger items, anchoring the top and bottom of your shelving with the more substantial pieces - like filling the bottom of a bookshelf with storage baskets.
TIP: with your eye, draw an imaginary line between the top of each item – the goal is to have them create a zig-zag pattern. This creates visual interest and keeps the eye moving around the vignette.
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Stand Back & Edit
Home decor is at its best when it’s thought out stylistically, and arranging your shelves is no different. Carefully selecting items that mirror the textures, colour palette and feeling already present in your home will help you to successfully curate a united look in your shelving space. From the integration of new interior aesthetics, to decorating with seasonal fresh flowers and foliage – allow your style to naturally evolve over time by switching things up with small tweaks over the year rather than everything at once. Liberty London’s set of Trio Candle Set can be rotated accordingly while still working with your existing scheme.
TIP: the only hard-and-fast rule regarding how to style shelves is that not all items are worthy of such a display moment. Leave the room and come back with fresh eyes to see what pieces you need to axe.
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