Hi, my friends! I hope you had the most amazing weekend 🙂 Here in Austin, it’s still a million and a half degrees outside (LOL…help), in case you were wondering. Because of so, I wanted to take this weekend to be productive around the house and go out only in the evening. On Friday, we explored a few new coffee shops to work from then grabbed snacks at my favorite Austin spot, Hotel Zaza, and finished up at Diner Bar for dinner. On both Saturday and Sunday, I picked up around the house and made plans for the next space I’m taking: the bedroom.
Before taking on that space, all my energy has been spent on the common spaces: living room, guest bath and outdoor deck. I shared the guest bath last week and now it’s finally time to share my latest project: open shelving in the living room. Even before I moved in and had only seen the condo via FaceTime and pictures, I knew I would need to add several options for storage. This home only has one true closet, in my bedroom, then two other closed door spaces. One of those spaces holds HVAC with some space below that can truly only hold my trashcan, a three tier rolling cart and a huge bag of dog food for Max.
In my living space, I had a huge blank wall that I first thought would be a cool bar. After researching and learning more about the weight, time commitment and cost, I decided against it. However, I knew I could find industrial ladder shelves to create functional open storage that I desperately needed. I searched for several weeks for the perfect shelves that were a mix of metal and black wood and finally pulled the plug on three ODK 6 shelf ladder shelves. This wall is just about 76 inches wide so three 23 inch wide shelves made for the perfect fit.
When it came to organizing here, my original thought was to have a shelf dedicated to a certain type of storage: kitchen, home and office. Once I started placing items, I realized that it was easier to mix up the items on the shelves and base the storage off of what I needed most and what looked the best placed together. Since I had the bar cart placed across from this wall before, the first priority was moving my bar to the shelves. All the heavy bottles of liquor were moved to the sideboard so just the fun stuff was left to be styled on the middle shelves. I then moved some of my favorite kitchen items that could be used as decorative pieces, like the stacked mixing and dinner bowls, for more color. If I’m being honest, I had so many of these items stashed in the back of cabinets that could barely close as it was. But now seeing all these kitchen crucial items out, even in just these past two weeks, has reminded me to use them and reminded me why I purchased color coordinated items in the first place.
After that, I truly went through a wave of trial and error, placing and removing, rearranging and trying again. The shelves now feel like the perfect balance between function and style. For closed office items storage, I purchase both hyacinth baskets and pink file folder bins. In the baskets, I have one for notepads (Yes, I have that many notepads because I love stationary); blank notecards (again, I love stationary) and home improvements aids like command strips, drill and batteries. I don’t reach for any of those items every day but wanted them to be easily accessible when needed. Ironically, the pink file bins are currently empty. I may use one for overflow of office supplies but the other will remain empty for now. Two of the hyacinth baskets are also empty…for now 😂
I used a portion of my ever-growing table book collection to create small moments on the shelves with some used as a pedestal for bowls and glasses, while others are standing to break up the shelf or bring color to a dull area. I reach for the home decor and entertaining table books a lot so I wanted those to be easily accessible. The cooking books are, of course, the least reached for books so being at the top is totally fine. I can easily grab the bottom five shelves without a ladder with the top shelf needing a step stool as support for me to reach.
Of course, these shelves will change every few months but for now, they are the perfect balance of style and function in this empty space. And now what you’ve been waiting for, a shelf by shelf breakdown! Shop everything I could find below 🙂
Shelf one
Row 1: hyacinth basket / terrarium from a workshop
Row 2: Wicker glasses set
Row 3: white dinning bowls / melamine cups (old/no label from TJ Maxx)
Row 4: pink file folder bin
Row 5: paper towels (lol) / hyacinth basket
Row 6: devotional / table book book
Shelf two
Row 1: Food Live cookbook, Unicorn Food cookbook, Sheet Pan Dinners / decanter / glasses are old Pier1 (no longer sold)
Row 2: hyacinth basket / blue & white bowls / Michelle Obama table book \ white box is from my Day Designer planner
Row 3: Bar kit / “crystal” shaker / shot glasses / wine table book / ginger beer
Row 4: wine tasting set / Paris table book / CRAFT cocktail kits / decanter
Row 5: mixing bowls
Row 6: pink file folder bin
Shelf three
Row 1: planter / bamboo lantern hold
Row 2: jasper ware vase / crackled vase / the rest are thrifted and can’t be found – apologies!
Row 3 & 4: vintage Jonathan Green I found in Charleston – so precious to me 💜
Row 5: Obama table book
Row 6: Organizing Your Life / Domino / Princess Diana / We Are each Others Harvest / Serena Williams / From Harvest to Home (pre-order) / hyacinth basket
Thanks so much for reading, sweet friends! Do you have open storage shelving in your home? If so, how do you prefer to style it? Let me know in the comments! -xo, Azanique <3
