4 Simple Tips For Styling Your Shelves

Let’s get one thing clear, shelf styling can be intimidating! It was for me, at least. Getting my office space completely renovated and finished during quarantine was exciting to say the least. Ryder now gets to do his school lessons in an office setting, and I’m able to get some work done too (like writing this blog post)!

But, as excited as I was for my office space to be complete, looking at all the empty built-in shelves was stressful! I’m seriously so grateful for Amazon as I was able to buy so many fun trinkets, vases, and more to help diminish this daunting task.

Styling several shelves in one space can feel overwhelming, so I have some tips to share with you to help ease that intimidation. If you have any tips to add or pieces of advice, feel free to share them over on my Instagram. While I am so happy with how everything turned out, there are always more shelves to be decorated and I could always use the help!

Tip #1: Give yourself plenty of time and patience.

As much as I wanted to rush and get this checked off my to-do list, I also wanted to make sure I filled my office shelves with pieces I truly loved. The goal was to find timeless pieces, not just ones I settled on for the time being that I would inevitably swap out in two months. I also decided to stick with a color scheme so I didn’t go on a shopping frenzy. Neutral and gray tones looked best, so I stuck to those colored pieces. Most of the items pictured were found on Amazon Home!

Tip #2: Use baskets to your advantage!

If you have a lot of space and are unsure how to fill it, I recommend baskets. They add texture and work doubly as storage space. Plus, less is more! If you keep adding small items, your shelves tend to look cluttered. I find vases and decorative bowls make good filler items for larger spaces as well. I had so much fun finding different sizes and heights to tier off of one another. You don’t even need to fill them either! One less thing to worry about, right?

To see each item, click the corresponding number and you’ll be taken directly to the item:

1 |2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

Tip #3: Balance is key!

Before I even started shelving the decor, I lumped everything together by color and size. You’ll have to do quite a bit of rearranging to make sure all the pieces look perfect next to one another. When shopping around for pieces, or even looking around your house for odds and ends, be sure to find items with varying heights, textures, and hues. To balance it all out, I placed my biggest pieces first and then worked around those. You can do it too!

Tip #4: Work in odd numbers!

You’ll notice that several of my shelves have three items – that’s because groups of 3 and 5 are super appealing to the eye! I used my favorite coffee table books and other smaller books to add dimension to the space. These books are almost always aligned, you guessed it, in groups of 5.

To see each item, click the corresponding number and you’ll be taken directly to the item:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

There you have it! 4 simple tips to help you in your journey to curating the perfect styled shelves! Remember to be patient and to step back and take in the view throughout the process. I am obsessed with how my shelves turned out and couldn’t imagine them any differently! Tell me: what is your favorite item you’ve used to style shelves? I, of course, love my books, vases, and baskets but I want to hear from you. Comment down below or leave me a message over on IG!

Happy organizing, decorating and shelving!

Allie