My awesome friend let me play with her built in shelving a couple weeks ago. These shelves are on either side of her fireplace in her living room and she didn't know how to style them...
Lots of shelves like this can be overwhelming for someone to decorate. At first I was a little overwhelmed because it seems like you need a ton of stuff to fill them when really its just about how you lay it out. I used everything she already had and the only thing I brought along with me were some old books I had from my wedding decorations. I will admit, I'm afraid of color. I stay far far away from it when it comes to my home but she loves color and that really shows through her personality so it was fun and different for me to tackle these big shelves. Here is the before picture of the left side...
And the before picture of the right side...
And all of the afters... There are a lot of pictures so bear with me!
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The first thing I did was even up the shelves. If you notice in the before picture, all of the shelves were staggered and because I was putting so much stuff and so many different colors on them I wanted them to be even and simpler. If I left them staggered, it would be way too busy.
When it came to the colors and different pieces, I went back and fourth from the left shelf to the right, if there was red on the left side, I would put red on the right side, if there was a picture frame on the right side I would put a picture frame on the left. I just tried to even it out so your eye keeps moving. She said she had everything grouped together but if all the red was on one side grouped together then your eye would just stay in that one spot. Spreading it all out keeps your eyes looking all around at everything on the shelves...
Here are some close ups... Prepare for picture OVERLOAD!
I didn't take pictures of the bottom two shelves because she has small kids and watches my son on Wednesdays so we left those bare... for now :)
She has a lot of cool stuff and such a beautiful house. I cant wait to get my hands on some more spaces in her home.
This was so much fun to do and I hope you enjoyed reading!
Have a great weekend and enjoy the weather! Hopefully we will get a project done this weekend and ill show you our updated living room....
xo- Savanna