Built-in Shelves Next to Fireplace & How to Style Open Shelving
Do you hear the choir of angels singing?!? No???? Well, I sure do!! Our built-ins are done and I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it! (Name that movie! Speaking of movies, head here to see a list of our favorite Christmas movies.) For the last 5 years I’ve dreamed of built-in shelves next to our fireplace and it has finally happened. Another reminder that for most of us, projects in our home take TIME. And money. Which hence, causes more time to elapse.
Before. Would you look at all that wasted space. It’s begging for some pretty built-ins.
After.
All the heart’s eyes x 177 inserted here. Can you believe the difference? And you know what’s crazy? The room actually feels bigger, even though we added more into the room.
I wasn’t very good at getting pictures throughout the process but in this picture you can see some progress made. I wanted the cabinets pretty tall because I knew I wanted to take the tv from our fireplace and move it into this area. I’m not a huge fan of a tv on a fireplace so was super pumped to get it moved over. Therefore our contractor had to build a pretty large base for the cabinets to go on top of.
The space back here is so narrow which made it an awkward space, til’ now that is. I decided to have it all painted white which I’m very happy with. And you know the best part about that? I wasn’t the one who painted it.
And check out how pretty our fireplace looks now without a huge tv on it! You can go here to see more of our fireplace mantle decked out for Christmas.
The vertical shiplap is SO good! So happy I decided to do that instead of horizontal.
How to Style Open Shelving
Open shelving is all the rage right now and it’s a trend that I don’t really see going anywhere anytime soon. Obviously I love decorating my home and open shelves gives the perfect opportunity to create pretty vignettes. A lot of people struggle with decorating open shelving and I admit, it can be a little tricky. I wanted to put together some tips for you all to decorate your own open shelves.
LAYERS
Use layers when styling your shelves. You see how in the picture below I have the mirror behind the books and plant; this creates layers. You don’t want to put everything in a single, straight line. Layers is more appealing to the eye.
REPEAT COLORS
Having a color scheme is important when styling shelves. In the picture below, notice my color scheme. I repeat the same colors on both sets of shelves. This helps the shelves look cohesive and like they are one unit instead of two separate shelves.
VARYING HEIGHTS
Varying heights is another important factor when styling shelves.
An easy tip to bring some more height to an item, is to grab an old book or two and place the item/s on it.
DIFFERENT SIZED ITEMS
Something I always try to do is use various sized items. Below you can see I used a large basket and placed some smaller items next to it. Don’t be afraid to put large items on a shelf. The different sizes of things is what makes it look interesting!
GROUP ITEMS
Groups are typically more pleasing to the eye than items spaced out perfectly from one another. I tend to gravitate to groups of 3 but that is not a rule I strictly go by. Below is an example of a group of 3. I count the 2 candlesticks as “1”.
PLAY AROUND WITH IT
My last and final tip is to simply keep trying different arrangements til’ you find one you like!
I didn’t grab all of this stuff, put it up in 1 try and come up with this. It took me a little while of trying different arrangements until I came up with something I loved.
LINKS
My Favorite Faux Flickering Candles
My wall lights are out of stock right now but these black ones are really cute!
