Study Before After & How To Decorate Shelves

This blog post may be more for those who live in a rental property or those who move often. Like us. We move every 3 years. Since we only live in a rental home for a little short of 3 years during each assignment of my husband’s job, it doesn’t motivate me to do a whole lot to change our new home. I don’t do any DYI… DIY is a big emotional investment, especially of time and money. Since I usually don’t have the emotional energy to paint the walls back to white or put everything back to the original state before we move out, I prefer not painting walls unless I can afford to hire someone. Thus, the decorating ideas I used in Tokyo are low maintenance and easy to apply. We don’t own many decorative items and I keep my home simple.

In the world of social media, the more you display to decorate in a room, the more attention you get. Generally speaking. However, our home abroad is usually simple and furnished with ordinary furniture. Nothing trendy. Nothing unique about it. The furniture we have in our rental home abroad would not necessarily get attention on IG. However, I am very grateful to have them. (By the way, simple homes can get attention, too, if the room is filled with designers’ minimalistic furniture pieces, for instance.)

HOW TO DECORATE STUDY WITH MANY SHELVES

When I first saw the study with two walls of shelves, I thought to myself how on earth I am supposed to fill all the shelves without more supplies of books. I didn’t want to buy more books or decorative items for the sake of occupying the space. Having more items means more work when we move again. It’s exhausting. When I see IG photos of rooms filled with decors, I always imagine what it would be like to pack and move all of the decors myself. Just the thought of it exhausts me. Moving homes is emotionally taxing. The less you have to get rid of, give away, pack and unpack, the better off and easier your move would be.

Here are some of my ideas to decorate a room full of shelves. Fortunately, we had just enough items to fill our book shelves. It surprised me how much we actually own… You can see the results if you scroll down. I would be curious to know what you think of them.

BEFORE

AFTER

AJUST SHELF HEIGHT

As you can see, the shelves came in all different heights. I had to start with adjusting all the shelves by making them with the equal height. I find it easier to decorate and easy on the eye. It was tedious, but it was worth the effort in the end. Small thing like adjusting shelves changed how the room looked instantly.

GROUP BOOKS BASED ON THE COLORS

I have never grouped books based on the colors of their covers. In the past, we always grouped books by genres. However, none of my family members really read books we had in our bookshelves. Thus, this time, I decided to group them based on the colors of of book covers. The color coding method made the shelves look more styled and it cost me nothing. They definitely look prettier in my opinion.

BASKETS ON THE BOTTOM SHELVES

Since we have many shelves, I needed to use some baskets as storage. Baskets came in handy to store some small items that can’t be stacked or create visual clutter. Those baskets are perfect for the bottom shelves, don’t you think? When I buy baskets for storage, I don’t just buy one. I usually try to buy 4 of them or more. The unified look of baskets makes shelves look neat. You can never own too many baskets.

DECORATE SHELVES WITH PICTURE FRAMES

If you have seen my other posts on our home, you may have noticed that I don’t use photo frames to decorate the dining room or living room. I prefer to keep photo frames more in private areas such as our bedrooms or study because I find photos personal. Living abroad means that you have contractors, plumbers and other repairmen comes in often. We also tend to entertain more when we are abroad. Therefore, I try to keep personal photos away from the public eyes. Anyways, I like decorating shelves with frames since it’s super easy. I actually need to do some updating of our photos since most of the photos I display are from over 10 years ago!

USE ARTIFICIAL PLANTS

I used artificial plants to decorate top shelves. I feel that even fake greens make the room feel fresher. I can’t imagine watering those plants that are placed so high. For me, artificial plants are as good as real ones since I seem to kill all the plants that come into our home.

GAMES ON THE BOTTOM SHELVES

I would like our kids to play with board games. Thus, they need to be in an easily accessible place. Putting on the bottom shelves makes the clutter of boxes less visible, yet accessible. My kids have played with boardgames many times since we moved here. I need to figure out how to make them look neat. That’s something I need to work on.

BEFORE

AFTER

COUCH COLOR

This yellow couch is not a style and color we would pick to buy for ourselves. It came with our house and I don’t mind the color, though. The toned down mustard yellow couch is workable. Painting the walls with grey paint may have made this room with a yellow couch look better. However, I decided to embrace the white walls and added black in decorations. Pillow cases do a magic to rooms, in my opinion. They are worth investing in. Since I knew that my husband would be the one to use this study, the goal was to make this room the most comfortable and relaxing for him. He hasn’t said much about it, but he does spend a lot of time in here. I take it as a message that he likes it.

This study was the hardest room to organize with many books and knick knacks. It may still look like a work in progress to some, but I’m happy with how far I have come with this room. I hope you find some inspirations from this room.

Thank you so much for visiting my blog! Happy decorating!