Your Bookshelf Does Not Need More Objects. It Needs More Space.

Before buying another vase, candle or decorative object, try removing a few things instead.

I have spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to make bookshelves look better.

Move the books.

Move them back.

Add a vase.

Decide the vase is too small.

Find a bigger vase.

Stand across the room and wonder why the bookshelf now looks even worse.

The problem, of course, was not that the shelf needed something else.

It needed less.

Try this with one shelf

Do not empty the entire bookcase onto the floor. We are improving your afternoon, not ruining it.

Pick one shelf.

Now remove a few things.

Start with anything you do not particularly like but have somehow been displaying for the past six years.

The candle you never light.

The book you did not enjoy.

The decorative object you bought because the shelf “needed something.”

Take them away.

Already better?

Good.

Now leave a gap

Here is the difficult part.

Do not fill it.

I know. You have a perfectly good little vase that would fit there.

Put it down.

Give the books and objects you actually like some room. You may be surprised by how much better they look when they are not fighting twelve other things for attention.

Move a few books

If every book is standing upright in one long row, break things up.

Take four or five books and stack them horizontally.

Leave them alone or put one favourite object on top.

One object.

We know how this started.

Keep the things worth looking at

This is really the entire trick.

Your bookshelf does not need to be minimalist, colour-coded or styled within an inch of its life.

It can hold photographs, slightly battered books, things brought home from holidays and objects that make absolutely no sense to anyone except you.

Those are often the best things on it.

They just need enough space to be seen.

The Minute Makeover

The funny thing about a crowded bookshelf is that you stop seeing what is actually on it.

The photograph you love. The book you have read three times. The strange little object you carried home in your suitcase because, at the time, it seemed absolutely essential.

Give those things some room and the whole shelf feels different.

Better?

Excellent.

Now walk away before you buy another vase.