How To Decorate Shelving Like A Pro

All of the sources for the items shown in the photos are linked at the very bottom of the post for your convenience! If I don’t have anything to do on a Saturday night, you can usually find me cozied up on the couch with a blanket and my laptop scrolling through Pinterest, checking out some of my favorite blogs, or thumbing through the latest copy of Magnolia Journal. Other times, inspiration comes in the more obvious form…through other designer’s rooms on Pinterest or blogs. For a couple of years now, I’ve been admiring perfectly decorated shelves all while filling up my inspiration jar.

This how to decorate shelves guide contains affiliate links, but nothing that I wouldn’t wholeheartedly recommend anyway! So, this year when Logan asked me what I wanted for Christmas, instead of using my typical answer “oh, I don’t need anything honey…”, I replied, “I would like a shelving unit, here’s the link to the one I want.“.

I also put some floating shelves up above the toilet again in our recent modern farmhouse bathroom renovation. But, this was the first time that I had a massive shelving unit that was all mine to decorate to my heart’s content. When it came time to get my shelving unit decorated, let’s just say my inspiration jar was FULL. I’m going really break things down today to make it really easy to understand how to decorate shelving like a pro.

With these shelf-decorating tips and tricks, you’ll be ready to get those shelves looking good in no time! Much like a super popular Konmari method of decluttering, let’s start by gathering up all possible decoration ideas and putting them all together.

But, chances are that the shelves would look like a hodge-podge mess if you didn’t have some sort of repetition or a color scheme. This simple repetition helps tie all of the decor on the shelving together so things look more cohesive.

When I was decorating these shelves, I was struggling to pull in some more repetition of the pure white color after I added my cute farmhouse pitchers (which are totally spray painted BTW, read all about it here).

The box you see up on the top shelf was originally a rustic wood shade…I quickly dry brushed some white acrylic paint on there and BOOM….the decorated shelves instantly looked better with the subtle repetition of the color white.

In the tan box on the left, I’m storing my favorite magazines – mostly old copies of Magnolia Journal & Better Homes And Gardens In the vintage suitcase on the bottom, I’ve stuffed in a spare pillow for visitors that are crashing on the couch

You’ll notice on my shelves that stacks of books from thrift stores are one of the great ways that I use to vary heights! There’s something about the shape of a triangle that also looks great when you are decorating shelves…it probably has something to do with the magic of three…which brings me to the next point… Three areas of repetition for the color white (spread out in a general shape of a triangle, too) Three things added to the scale (vintage books, faux plant, and mini wreath)

If you want to flex your designer muscles, decorating a whole shelving unit like this is a workout – 10 points for the corny joke. If you’re reading this and you’re stuck and frustrated, try this (or if you just scrolled to the bottom and want the cliff notes version): One of the first things you should do is take everything off the shelves…yes, everything

Here are the exact same shelves in our living room, but this time they are refreshed and ready for spring! The shelving unit got another update when it was time to decorate our living room for Christmas.

Here’s how we decorated the shelves after we renovated our living room with more of a modern boho style. You can see here that there is a more minimalist and clean look to the shelves, but a lot of the same concepts exist (rule of three of baskets on the bottom shelf, grouping things together in threes, repetition of vintage books, wood tones, and colors.

Here’s, yet, another look at the shelving unit in our living room decorated for the holidays, but this time we used DIY stocking tags and added the farmhouse advent calendar and the little DIY gnome to the shelves. We also added floating shelves over the toilet when we renovated our modern bathroom and I love them!

I’m obsessed with these little floating shelves above our toilet in our newly renovated farmhouse bathroom! They are the perfect place for decor and functional items, like storing folded towels and extra toilet paper.

She uses her living room shelves to hold a lot of books mixed with other decorative items.

I love how she layers the picture frames to create more visual interest.