Styling Bookshelves

Hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend! I had such a great weekend. Really, one of those weekends that was the perfect mix of family time, friend time, project time and relaxing… they are so rare and I definitely enjoyed it!

This week is going to be a little bit of a brag on my superhero husband week… so just get ready.

Tomorrow, I will do the Mudroom reveal, which is definitely going to be bragging on him since I had very little to do with that room. Then I will show you a couple of updates to the family room, which will be all about him. Then hopefully, on Monday, I can show you all the finished kitchen updates, which again he did all the work! The kitchen is looking so good. Half the countertops are in and the sink is installed. John has really blown me away on this one. Once the countertops are finished up, I’ll be tiling the backsplash (trying not to get grout all over my beautiful new countertops) and will hopefully finish that up sometime this week.


Today, however, I want to talk about my humongous built-in bookshelves/media center (this is what they looked like when we moved in). When we bought the house, I thought they were great and was so excited about them. Little did I know that I would never be quite happy with them.

Here they are after the first styling:

Hindsight being 20-20, I wouldn’t repaint them blue. Eventually, I’ll paint them white, but that’s kinda when I run out of projects… ha! I think I’ve redecorated these shelves 3-4 times. That might not seem like a lot, but it takes almost a whole day to take everything off, rearrange the shelves and put everything back up. I can never decide how full I want them, what mix of tchotchkes and books, how much empty space, what looks cluttered and what looks empty, etc.

A week or two ago, I came across a blog post by Darlene at Fieldstone Hill Design:

I won’t rehash it, but if you struggle with bookshelf styling, you should read it. It was super helpful and this weekend, I tackled the bookshelves for what I hope is the final time! Here they are now:


Sorry that this picture is not awesome. These shelves are very difficult to take a good picture of because the right side always looks dark and the left is always blown out.

I used the center section as a display area for mostly pictures and personal items. I for the far left and far right columns, I tried to do mirror images of each other (roughly) to balance them out. But primarily, they are filled with books and simply added pictures and things to fill in empty space:


To me, the shelves feel more balanced without feeling cluttered. I think this is really personal taste. If John had his way, they would be 50% full. What about you? Do you prefer completely full, mostly full or very simple bookshelves?