Important Tips on Organising the Shelves in the Living Room

The living room is a place where we all spend most of our time when we’re at home, whether it’s relaxing, watching TV, reading a book or socialising with friends. To make the place more personal and at the same time practical, you need a little bit of creativity and good organisational skills.

For instance, you can create points of interest on the walls themselves by adding shelving units which will open up possibilities for you to show off your decorating skills. Aside from displaying only books on the bookshelves, you can use the space to display trophies or picture frames that you want to be noticed by people visiting you. If you need a helpful push to awaken your creativity, here are some tips and ideas on how to organise your shelves.

If you want to keep it simple and clean, try not to put decorative items on every shelf. You can choose a one-colour or tone-on-tone scheme for vases and little figures to create a clean look (just don’t forget to mix up shapes so that it’s not monotonous). Try to achieve a balance between the books and the other things you want to display.

Next, consider stacking the books horizontally and vertically. In order to make the vertically stacked ones appear more fun, you can use bookends. Also, heavy and sturdy vases or picture frames can also play the role of bookends. The result is shelving units that stand out and attracts the attention.

In order to draw more focus towards certain shelving units, you can group together a small set of books with streamlined vases and a metallic piece of decor. The background of the shelves should not be in the same colour as the wall so that the things you put on the shelves can stand out.

If your shelves are deep enough, you can play with layers. For instance, you can put some artwork in the back and anchor it with books or other heavy objects. Small collectibles or picture frames can come to the front as to give the effect of depth. Also, bulky vases can hide behind the picture frames in a way that the bigger part of them can still be seen.

A combination of books and bottles of wine can create a visually interesting shelf. Just make sure that you free enough space for the wine bottles. Books and wine, what more do you need for a quiet, relaxing evening beside the fireplace?

To add a little touch of secrecy, you can put boxes on the shelves and inside you can put everything you don’t think is visually compatible to be displayed on its own. You can combine them with books or magazines. Or, you can use baskets to provide catch-all space for sundries.

To achieve a systematic look, you can group items according to type on different levels of the shelves. For example, you can put books on one level, picture frames on another, artwork on the third one and so on.

Finally, you can increase visual appeal by adding height between the shelves. You can stack the books horizontally to create pedestals for other objects. The effect you will achieve is an easy showcase of elements you deem important.