SHELVES: INTRODUCTION
The shelves are a precious ally in furnishing: just a few shelves, a few tricks and a wall is perfectly furnished. Let’s see together some ideas to embellish your shelves.
Have you recently furnished your home? Do you want to revolutionize a wall, a bookcase? So arm yourself with photos, frames, vases, plants, books, bouquets and any collector’s item you want to exhibit!
BALANCE BETWEEN FULL AND EMPTY
Balancing spaces is the first fundamental rule for embellishing a shelf. As a first step, it is important to understand if the shelf will hold all the weight you intend to load. Once we are sure of this, we see the position that the shelf occupies on the wall.
As Marie Kondo, the KonMari method guru, always says, it is good to place visually bulky or heavy things on the lower shelves. So, suppose you need to store some books, a frame and a jar, and you have three shelves to choose from. The books will go on the lowest shelf, the jar on the middle one and the frame on the highest one.
If, on the other hand, there is only one plane available on which to arrange the objects, it will be necessary to balance the full and empty spaces. We do not overload one side only but, on the contrary, we try to divide the shelf into three. Left, middle and right side: one object per side or, alternatively, fill all three areas equally.
MEASUREMENT OF OBJECTS
To enrich the shelves you can choose objects of various sizes. The more variety there is, the more harmonious the shelves will be!
If you have large and small decorations available, start by placing the large ones first. Gradually the small ones will be inserted, in order to fill the spaces among the most voluminous.
It’s also nice to play on the heights to create movement on the shelf.
For example, a set of bottles of different sizes and heights will perfectly furnish the shelf even alone!
GREEN TOUCH
How many times have we seen beautiful plants on the shelves? You may not know it but most of them are fake!
In fact, most plants need a lot of light, water and obviously they will grow quickly. So the choice falls, especially on shelves, on artificial plants. These will not grow and do not need treatment to survive. A touch of green is always very decorative and helps make an environment less sterile.
Adorable dried bouquets too, make the mantel romantic and often bring sweet memories to mind.
COLORS
The chromatic scale is very important in the choice of decorations. By combining the objects with the decor of the room they will bind it perfectly, enriching it. Another possibility is to play on the contrast: they will stand out and draw attention to them!
VASES
Travel souvenirs, the result of DIY, collecting. The vases are always beautiful. A chic touch if chosen in lacquered enamel or metal, a slightly rough look if chosen in terracotta or decorative concrete. The fact is that even a single vase is enough to complete and embellish a shelf.
BOOKS
With the individual shelves it is possible to create a bookcase or, by aligning them, a long shelf that runs along the entire wall and the room. The latest decorative trend is to turn the books and show the opposite side to the back cover. It goes without saying that this option is only recommended for aesthetic purposes.
A tip: go to markets and choose the oldest and most particular tomes.
Customizing the shelves and shelves is what makes a cozy and warm environment. Choosing frames in style with the furniture and matching them chromatically will give that touch of familiarity and uniqueness to the wall.
Green light for family photos, portraits, photos of our four-legged friends or simply some artwork.
MINI GALLERY
There are shelves specially designed to support paintings, the U-shaped ones.
These are perfect for displaying a collection, travel photos, watercolors or more. Beautiful if placed on the sofa.
SYMMETRY
If we choose to decorate groups of shelves or overlapping shelves we must take into account the universal law of design: harmony / symmetry. By placing the chosen objects, we will try to form imaginary diagonals and we will always take into account the location of the objects on the shelf immediately next to or immediately below.
One should try to harmonize the forms as much as possible. The trick is to take a step back to see if the balances have been respected!
THE RULE OF 3
We have already mentioned the possibility of ideally dividing a shelf into three and positioning the decorations according to the harmony of the three divisions. Apparently the eye feels a kind of pleasure when, even if it doesn’t want to, the objects are grouped in three by three.
So maybe you can place three different plants, three books, three vases, three bouquets and so on nearby, everything will be harmoniously more pleasant!
FUNCTIONAL SHELF
In case you want to combine aesthetics with functionality, it is good to know that a shelf-bar is of great impact and gives a lot of class to an environment. Great for storing glasses, goblets, bar tender tools but also for displaying the most precious or favorite bottles. A shelf of this type with a cabinet used as a cockpit creates the bar corner of our dreams.
LEAVE A COMMENT
If you found the article interesting, leave a comment with your considerations about it.
Finally, if you need a personalized guide to beautify your shelves, send an email to valeriadesign@casaomnia.it!