These Elegant Solutions for Shelving are Transformative, Beautiful, and Practical
You’ve been inside a home that is overflowing with stuff. Maybe it’s your own home. Most of us can’t help acquiring things that are important to us–from framed photographs, to keepsakes, to toys for the kids, but knowing where to put them can be a challenge.
Even more challenging is how to find ways to store or display a room’s items elegantly and tastefully. Fortunately, professional craftsmanship can provide functional, practical shelving that is – more importantly – an essential element in a home’s design.
Shelving used to be an afterthought – something you purchased to hold the things your tables, closets, and cabinets couldn’t support. Not anymore. With the suggestions below, shelving is not just a necessity – it can become an intentional aesthetic choice.
Consider On-Trend Floating Shelves
A floating shelf is just that – a substantial piece of locally sourced hardwood with hidden brackets so that these custom shelves appear to be suspending themselves. Although this is a relatively new trend with a strikingly beautiful appearance, the anchors are surprisingly easy to install.
Floating shelves can work in nearly any room of a house, and – while they are beautifully made in and of themselves – they become a pedestal for anything you choose to place on them. Suddenly, the end table or the wobbly bookshelf isn’t necessary anymore, and what was displayed there–say, old vacation photos acquiring dust–become a central focus of the home.
Farmhouse Shelving Brings Deluxe, Stylish Country Living to Your Home
Another – and equally gorgeous – option for your shelving is the farmhouse style. The wood on metal look to farmhouse shelving suggests the beauty of a well-maintained house in the country passed down through the ages, complete with water pump, haybarn, and a pond for swimming. At the same time, however, the stylish design also communicates a modern, on-trend lifestyle.
Farmhouse shelving that is mounted using iron, such as iron pipe, looks particularly fitting in kitchens. This design element offers a general store-like display space. Now, kitchen items that were hiding in cabinets can be brought out into the open. Consider decorating farmhouse shelving with tastefully chosen handmade bowls, plates, a ceramic pitcher, glass bottles, or other rustic antiques you can curate from local shops or even online.
This shelving also works well in bathrooms, where we’ve seen iron piping used for mounting double as a rack for hand towels, or a place to hang a warm cotton robe.
A design choice like farmhouse shelving can turn a home into a haven where you can feel like you’re getting away from the bustle of the workweek to your own private country retreat.
Choosing the Wood
The characteristics of the wood you choose is a design choice in your control as well when you go for custom shelving. You can opt for a more rustic look, or a cleaner, polished feel, depending on the wood you choose.
Softwoods, such as pine, tend to have more imperfections – which may be the perfect touch, depending on your taste and decor. Hardwoods such as maple or oak are more refined, bold, and clean.
Choosing a Stain and Finish
Tailor-made shelving truly does leave you with a multitude of options, but stain and finish are two of the most essential choices you have to make. A designer of handcrafted shelves can recommend the right stains and finishes depending on the wood you choose as well as the color scheme that’s right for the room you have in mind.
Lighting Can Enhance Custom Shelving
Shelving in the home can also be lighted to add another layer of functionality and beauty in any room. Lighting is always used to set the mood, but when it becomes backlighting for intentionally constructed shelving, you end up with a stunning design concept. Now, previously-stored objects can be featured and even backlit by the right lighting, accentuating the bespoke items you’ve chosen to display.
So Many Options for Customization
The choice of wood, to stain it or leave it bare, what material to select for supports, whether to let the shelves float with invisible anchors or not – there are limitless options for how to customize your shelving.
But there is one form of customization that we think tops them all. When a professional craftsperson chooses wood that is sustainably sourced, ignoring highly deforested woods and opting for local materials, they deliver a customization that is created by nature alone. All wood looks a bit different, and tells its story through its grooves and small imperfections. This, we think, is individuality at its finest, and you can communicate and honor your love of nature by hanging customized shelving in your home.
