diy it: Open Shelves

Nick is a very minimalistic guy, his old bedroom had literally a bed, two shelves with nothing on it except for 5 rocks, 4 books and a hacky sack. I on the other hand, am on the other end of the spectrum and is a borderline craft material hoarder. Now that I've officially moved in, I knew we needed some major storage solution. Our condo is quite small and I was leaning towards open shelving to help keep the living area open, light and looking spacious. I had pinned this DIY shelf awhile back and it looked relatively simple and cheap. Turns out though because we opted for metal pipping instead of copper, the cost goes way up! I would have to say the difficulty of this DIY is between moderate to high because getting the poles to be perfectly straight was very tricky and we had to sand down the ends of the poles to wedge them into the pipping. If you want to attempt this, my advice is to just get 2 dowels the height you want your shelf to be instead of cutting them up for each tier. Thank goodness Nick is very handy and extremely patient, I was flopped on top of the couch with frustration but he was diligently working away on it. When it was finished though, I was obsessed with the shelf and over the moon it turned out so well!

With open shelving though, decorating can be tricky. With a closed shelf, you can just shove whatever you want in there, close the door and Bob's your uncle. Here are a couple of tips for open shelving decorating:

1. Group like colours together on one tier, I have all the black and white boxes and animals on one shelf and glasswares on another.
2. Ugly electronics need to be stored into a basket (and not one you can see through!) and cover it up with a throw.
3. Stack books of same colours together and if they are the colour of the rainbow, I like to turn them around and have the pages facing out.
4. This acrylic storage case is perfect for displaying sunnies!
5. Plants, plants and more plants. The greenery instantly perks up the shelf. I am plant obsessed!
6. Hide any unsightly things at the top shelf so it's not eye level and kept in baskets or bowls.

Source
White bowl, book ends, wood and tin drawers, cloth and wire basket: Homesense
Grey Basket: SImons
Pencil Holder: Target
Decanter with gold top, elephant book end: Indigo
Cat candle: PyroPet