Before & After: Home Styling Part Two

Last week I wrote about my online interior styling class and I presented the first results – my coffee table and sofa styling. Today, I want to share the second part with you: styling a bookshelf and a console. 

Justina Blakeney’s online course was a truly fun experience as we were asked to take ‘before & after’ pics and apply the ‘8 principles of styling’. So when I embarked on restyling my upper bookshelf, I’ve noticed one thing: it was hopefully packed. We learned that things should have a bit of space ‘to breathe’ in order to avoid a cluttered look. So I took off all knickknacks and a good deal of books, played with vertical and horizontal placement, added a bit of texture and colour with my little House Doctor owl, a dash of bling with my faceted sapphire blue vase and some spring botanicals. When I look at the ‘before & after’ pic I must admit – this is definitely an improvement.

The console was the next task. I have a lovely wooden console (found at Butlers) with many little drawers painted in various grey and black shades. Funny enough, I’d sort of restyled my console just a few weeks before the course kicked off, so I felt like I had to enhance my styling rather than restyle it completely. 

I liked the colour scheme that included greys, blues and greens so I looked around in my apartment and found a few goodies to add to the vignette: a green, vintage apothecary glass bottle, a weathered blue letter (both from Home Barn) and my quirky plant pot from Atelier Stella with a tiny cactus. I remembered the rule that items should be grouped in odd numbers, and a set of three has a great visual power especially if you combine different heights. Plus, the colours were perfect and ta-dah, my console styling was accomplished!

I really like the outcome of my little styling approaches. What do you think? Do you restyle your home frequently?