Good Wednesday Morning to you friends! We're now officially one week from closing day on the Charleston, SC house we bought (our sixth house), and I'm getting so pumped and excited! (We sold our fifth house - get the deets here.) I can't wait to show you all the new house. I've already been dreaming up design ideas, but mainly I'm just excited to stop living out of suitcases (like we have been for the past couple weeks).
Speaking of living out of suitcases, last week while we were staying with family in Lexington my sweet teenage niece (I can't believe she's driving now! She was 2 when I married her uncle!) requested some design help with her bedroom. There is nothing better, to me anyway, than having family and friends request your design help. For me there's just something special about the people you love most having enough confidence in your design ideas/choices to trust you with their spaces. Maybe I feel like that because I treat my own spaces like they are my babies, and I probably wouldn't trust anyone with them. ;)
Anyhow, when I took a little tour of her room I immediately zoned in on the corner cabinet you see first thing when you walk into the space. Overall her room looked great as it was, the wall color is a pretty light shade of blue, her bed is white cast iron (just gorgeous!) and the bedding is really pretty and simple - white with some light robin's egg blue accents. This room didn't need a complete overhaul. All it needed was a few accents to pull the room together. So I tackled the space by starting with the one area that drew the eye away from the pretty things in the space. In a lot of ways this corner cabinet is the main focal point of the room, and as it looked before it just wasn't shining as brightly as it could.
A corner shelf can be a little tricky as you have more space to fill because the shelves are deeper in the middle. It can be hard to find the balance between too much stuff and not enough, and it can also be tough trying to juggle form with function.
My goal was to make it light and bright pulling in the main accent colors from her bedding while bringing in functional pieces she could use to store jewelry and hair accessories. I started by removing everything she had on the shelves. Then I shopped the house for accessories and made one trip to TJMaxx.
I don't pretend to be a design expert. I'm just a design-obsessed girl with a passion for creating interiors that tell the story of the people who live in them. What I've learned has come from trial and error. I've found that when it comes to styling shelves it's good to start from the bottom and work your way up - at least that's what typically works for me.
So I started by bringing in some texture and function in the form of these baskets and then added in the main accent color with these round glass jars. The mason jar was something I found in the garage; the other stuff came from my TJMaxx shopping trip.
Once I had the bottom shelf done I just worked my way up sort of staggering and stair stepping the texture and color as well as the different shapes. The idea here was to create one main statement rather than 4 individual shelves, so the texture and color flows from the top to the bottom. If you follow the arrows you'll see how the texture of natural accessories (baskets & wood) flows. Similarly you'll see that the shiny stuff is grouped in the middle and bookended by color, and the different shapes are spread throughout. It's not exactly a formula but I think it helps to see the thought process behind how things are styled.
Staggering the shapes just keeps things more interesting and also creates some balance without looking too perfectly symmetrical. I also grouped like objects and created groups of odd numbers. I think every vignette/display/shelfie needs something shiny i.e. something metallic, so I kept her gold K and did a little happy dance when I found the large silver M - her happy metallic monogram. And you may remember the gold lanterns (that use to live in my basement bathroom - I let her have them).
I also think design is in the details and your spaces should really reflect what you love. My niece has done mission work in Haiti and wants to go back again, so when I found this little cream colored globe I knew exactly how to make it personal.
*Little tip - If you have canvas pictures you're not loving anymore, try turning them around and putting a print inside. That's what we did here on her top shelf. We turned over the canvas she had and taped her favorite print inside. It makes for a prefect frame.
All in all her new shelfie style makes a huge difference in her room. And the best part is she's really happy with the way it looks now!
Do you ever have trouble styling shelfies in your home? Do you have any styling tips or ideas to share?
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