Put some books in it, hon, it's a bookshelf.

I like the look of wallpaper along the back of bookshelves. I think Making it Lovely did this in her house, but I can't quite remember - I'm on blog and magazine overload at the moment!

becky

Books, good. Treasures, good. Mirrors, bad.

i second the "mirrors bad" vote. visions of the 80s!!!
when i had an alcove like this, i painted the back in a gorgeous reddish-orange burnt adobe color and hung up an arrangement of my milagro-covered crosses.

Color is key. I also love the idea of wallpaper or a thick wrapping paper placed on the inside - just make sure the look of the paper goes with the room. Good luck!

What about leaving it white and painting the wall around it? It's hard to suggest a color though without seeing more of your decor.

Paint the back of the shelves in a high contrast rich and deep color. And use the area either to display all books. Or use the area to display treasures.

Since it is a small display. Keep the items focused and related. If not the entire display, at least by shelf.

Also and try to arrange flat items (cannot tell what the items on the bottom shelf are) so they have a bit more emphasis using stands or something similar. Instead of just laying flat on the shelf.

A little down spot light (puck light possibly) will top off the collection.

I agree with Pretentious, books would look lovely there, or at least, groupings of objects of similar size and shape.

I personally do not think you need to do anything to the shelf if you design and edit your the items. Opt for fewer items, vary them in size and use items of the same palette as artwork, furniture, and accessories in the room. If you use books, put some together vertically, stack some horizontally to vary the shape.

I agree less clutter more treasure. I am not wild about mirrors. I think a contrasting color along the back would be nice. If you have good glassware it might be nice to display it and create a bar area since it looks like it is off your kitchen in your living room...if you could figure out a way to light it discreetly it might make the objects stand out ( can't tell what your outlet situation is).

Agree on starting with the items. The curve on the top shelf is nice - if you had one thing there that was larger, eye-catching, "star of the show" , that might be a good starting point. Once you've done your "stuff edit", then revisit whether the shelf itself needs any tinkering, or is okay as is.

I think you should put the photographs up on the wall and remerchandize a little. I personally love the look of books interspersed with objects. My own shelves have well organized books packed in and little spaces in between where groups of objects are arranged in vignettes.

Wallpaper would be a great idea; I once used a lovely chinoiserie wallpaper from Jaima Brown to back similar shelves, applied to the back panel only. It helps to make yourself a template first out of paper if you choose this option.

For paint I'd suggest a chic chocolate brown, it will make whatever you decide to put on the shelves pop!

If it were me, I would paint the inside back (not the shelves, trim, etc) a color. Put books in the shelves, and then add some of your treasures.

books. nice looking books as opposed to old, worn-out paperbacks.

There's no single solution---books and treasures would both be nice---but I think this is the perfect opportunity to make this area pop. Paint (or paper) it turqouise or shocking pink or cornflower or periwinkle or chocolate, and whatever stands against it is bound to make you smile.

I would LOVE to have a bookcase like that! But then I have lots of collections to display: vintage fiestaware, American art pottery, vintage toys, etc.

But book, of course, would also be great. Group them by size. But yikes!: No mirror (unless you're building a shrine to Liberace).

It's definitely an optimal home for books or even neatly-organized magazines and papers - IKEA has great inexpensive pine organizers that you can paint. A nice full plant would look good on that top shelf, too.

For the items you already have there, try grouping "like with like" - dolls and other human figures together, flowery things together, framed snapshots together, etc., and maybe a big red leather box or something on the bottom shelf will help contain items that aren't display-worthy, but still give you some heft and some color. I'd get that scroll-like document framed, too, since it seems important enough to you to keep - but those shelves probably aren't the best spot for it.

Wine glasses on one shelf would also add some sparkle (and be practical), given the proximity to kitchen.

I don't think you'll mind the "plain" look once you're using the space well - though it'd be easy to advise on colors, etc. if you could give us some additional shots of the room?

Best of luck!

If you're thinking of color, go to an art supply store and buy paper that is roughly the same color, cut it to size and live with it for a while to see if you like it - this is a lot easier than painting and realizing you hate it.

The top shelf needs something that is a large and bold to focus your eye - go to a flea market, thrift shop, craigslist or whatever and find an interesting, inexpensive object and put it there. It could be a color, or it could be white - it is the size, scale and simplicity of shape that matters.

I'd put away the small objects on the second and on the bottom shelf and group the others.

And books - yes! But don't curate them! Put all sizes and types of books on your shelves but do NOT arrange them by size or color or cover them - and worn paperbacks are fine - that shows they're loved. Books are indications of your personaliy, inerests and intellect - arrange them and mix them with objects but respect them for what is inside.

If that were mine (and oh! how I wish it was!) I think I'd put a large plant (provided there's enough light available) with a rounded shape on the top shelf, a large, oblong woven or wood box or chest on the bottom shelf, and use books (because I have a ton) on the other shelves - some stacked, some upright - with a few of your other treasures in the spaces between and/or on top of the stacked books.

But there are a lot of other good ideas here, too. Hope you're not more confused than you were before you asked!!

Congratulations on your first apartment, by the way!! I hope you have a lot of fun turning it into a home.

I like using mirrors. But doing so will make the choice of objects to display all the more crucial - since you'll be seeing the backs of them, as well as "doubling" them. Glasses and bottles would work well.... But in the end I would vote for using your space for, yes, BOOKS!

Oh, and I forgot to add that if you do something like a mirror to catch the light from a window, *plants* would also be a good choice to display.

Keep it simple. Nice books, a few objects. This is a nice detail on its own. Think less is more. Don't work too hard.

Leave it empty.

I totally agree with the other posters. Paint the back of the alcove in a bold color, but one that goes with everything else you have in your room, such as using the primary color, if it's blue, use that but perhaps not in the exact shade/tone, but something similar, perhaps a bit darker than what's in the room itself, just the back, not the trim or shelves and then do as others have suggest, pare/edit your groupings so like/similar pieces are grouped together, perhaps by shelf, but never crowd the shelves themselves however.

put three or five things on each shelf. get rid of the bad stuff and only display your best things. You don't need to do anything to the shelves. It helps to go back into the APT archives and take the house tours. Pay attention to how people accessorize their shelves. Also, flip through home design catalogs like C$B and West Elm. You will get some composition ideas from them.

Unless one is very tall, putting a plant or a bowl of flowers on the top shelf under the arch is going to get very old very fast. The plant or flowers would have to be taken every time it needed to be watered, etc.

I can't comment on whether a mirror backing is very 80's or not. I can say I really don't like it. Not sure that Candice Olsen does it constitutes a recommendation.

Painting the back some sort of contrasting color is something I've seen done well many times. One that particularly impressed me was someone who had a collection of blue and white porcelain -- from Vietnam? -- and the color selected contrasted to the porcelain, highlighting the colors in the pieces.

My first thought was family photos and the like for that alcove, by the way.

I think it looks great as is. Since you just moved in, I would wait a while before painting anything. Sure color can be fabulous, but what is wrong with white or a more neutral look? A collection of all white coral or white teapots and bowls would look wonderful. You can decide if you want it to be more functional (bookcase, china storage) or a decorative display of objects you love, or some combination. If you don't need any functionality, taking out the shelves (carefully if you are renting) and putting in a sculpture or sculptural object is another way to go. Enjoy, looks like a good space!

my 2 cents:

1) find a frame for the document you have on the second shelf and hang it somewhere else. if you really value it, it definitely needs a frame.

2) I agree with the other posters about editing and grouping. decide what you really want to see on a regular basis (as opposed to "things you don't know where else to put."); maybe you have a vase or a teapot that you love that usually sits in a cupboard--display it here! to echo others, a few books would look great.

3) if you need this area for just plain storage, buy fabric-covered boxes to store smaller, non-decorative things in, and place these boxes on the bottom shelf. (The Container Stores has a good selection.)

4) unless you're able to edit your items to a very few, visually striking pieces, stay away from wallpaper as a background; it will end up looking too busy. Based on the little I can see of your room, maybe try a burnt orange/red paint on the back wall only.

have fun--it's a beautiful architectural detail!

Judging from its location, the arched nook was originally a china display, not a bookshelf.

Paint the back wall an accent color. Put visually heavy items on the bottom shelf -- in fact, the bottom two shelves are excellent places for books. But whatever's down there should appear bulkier than what's on the top shelf. When you get to the top shelf, you want a single dramatic item that's visually lighter -- glass, rather than pottery, or a lighter color, or both.

Small stuff needs to be arranged in tight little vignettes, and definitely take the advice of the person who said to use some sort of risers to give collections height variance. (Books on their sides work well for this, if you don't need the books every day.) It's okay to put small stuff in front of books or larger items if you're comfortable with an informal look -- obviously, this won't work for minimalists!

Can you tell that I miss my arches back in SF? If we were ever insane enough to build our own cottage, built-ins like yours would be on the must-have list.

Hey Diana.
Nice challenge.
The arched inset shelving is lovely.
The suggestion of painting the inside back wall, or papering, is a good one. I use lots of mirrors; but not here.
Think first, though, about what will go in the shelves...versus the background.
Choice pieces of china?
Do an ensemble of few,(large) significant shaped items.
Heavier looking ones towards the bottom, lighter items towards the top shelves. It should tell some kind of story.

My brother and his ex had an alcove just like this in their old house in Tucson. It's the thing I remember the most about their little house, even though I was only there once...16 years ago! The walls in the room were painted a fantastic pale blue that is so at home in those little plaster-walled Tucson bungalows, and the inside of the alcove/shelves was painted a slightly darker shade of blue. They used it to display a large collection of antique cameras (mostly Brownies, so their shapes were similar, pleasing cubes) and Mexican folk art. Every inch was occupied, but because the items were related and treasured, the effect was very tidy and pleasing to the eye.

Whatever goes on these shelves, make it things you love...and things that are related to each other. Try not to get too caught up in curating. If you pick a theme and stick to things you treasure within that theme, this can be a focal point in your home that you feel happy to see every day.

What a nice decorating dilemma, what a nice nook. You are quite right to be thoughtful about how you will decorate it as it will be a focal point your place.

There are many good suggestions here. I personally like a pop color with white accessories. Do you like ceramics? You can collect ceramics pretty inexpensively at thrift stores. If you keep them all white then be pretty disparate. Perhaps some white vases and white birds. Whatever you put there, the suggestions about making it a related collection are good. It will be more impactful that way. Think about what you like, teapots maybe? Pitchers maybe? Candle sticks? Simple objects become impactful when multiples are placed together.

I had an old apartment with a cute nook like this. Here are a couple of ways I decorated it:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/energeticpaintings/sets/72157600454251293/

In the orange version, I didn't paint the shelves and the edge. In the green version, I did and I rather like that one better. I think the key is to keep clutter down.

Good luck. Hope we see an after post.

Peggy, that is quite beautiful.

I'm not sure if anyone will see this but I have a similar dilemna. Except when we were doing some updating last year, we were advised to take the shelves out and replace with glass for a cleaner look. Being stuck in a sort of decorating coma, we took the shelves out but did not put the glass ones in.

Is the consensus that glass shelves = bad?

Now what?

It depends ENTIRELY on where the glass is ,in the context of your home. Looks great in some places, awful in others. And of course, it also depends on what you are going to display on it.

Simply G - do you have a flickr site? I had never really heard about replacing wood shelves with glass in an alcove before.

Seems to me glass is not cleaner (nor simpler) as, I imagine, you'd have to dust it more often. The way to keep the space simple is to limit the number of objects. A good rule for me when I decorate is that I kind of go crazy (kinda like brainstorming) and then edit out about half. I'm just not happy with clutter.

If you're not motivated to put up the glass shelves, maybe you don't like them. Do you still have the others that you can put back in?

Would love to see a flickr site. I'll visit your blog. Thanks for the compliment.

I like Anna's suggestion. We are doing the antique camera collection in our Danish cabinet and it does look spectacular. My husband was a photographer before he became a graphic designer so he is a little picky about the cameras he picks up, but old Brownies and such are easy to find in antique malls everywhere and are pretty cheap too. If you are a clueless on decorating shelves as I am, I recommend this as a first collection.

It just looks cluttered right now. Too many small objects, not grouped together in any interesting way, just spaced out along the shelves.

I would paint the back, something coordinating/contrasting with the decor in that room (I like the sound of turquoise). The edit the objects. Group 3 like objects together, varied size would be good to add interest. I would group the nesting doll and bobble head (?) on the top shelf together. I would put all the framed pics on the bottom shelf together, with nothing else, and buy frames of the same/color material. Get rid of anything that doesn't look like it was put there deliberately. Look at shop windows/in magazines for merchandising/editing tips.

Get rid of that bobble head doll on the top. Wow.

I just saw a spectacular display of vintage cameras in a similar nook in Cottage Living/Fresh Ideas. It did look great.

Peggy, thank you so much for your input. I know it's hard to give input without benefit of a photo so I will have to get flickr going. I have an account but haven't really utilized it. What I have are two such alcoves (though smaller) in a living room. I think I need to consult with someone to finish this room up becuase it's sort of lost in limbo. I think in a way that worked out fine as I try to really figure out what I'd like.

Your point is well taken on the glass. I don't have the old shelves so would have to have something fresh built back in or I did just see new shelves in the alcove picture of the cameras mentioned above.

My blog is not design related so I don't have photos posted there. But I think the consensus is a solid shelve would look better. Ah well - live and learn.

Boomer, actually it looks quite nice with the colored glass. I appreciate the link and since I've waited this long will work on tying this room up and appreciate the links to photos here.

i wouldn't put up cameras unless you are a photographer or something related.

put something that means a lot. if its bobble heads, make it all bobbleheads. what's missing for me, personally, is coherence between the (pick one) size, subject matter, texture, color of the objects displayed.

As an alternative to painting the back of the shelving unit, you could leave it white and paint or wallpaper the rest of the room a different color- even a slight contrast could make the space 'pop'.

I have one of these alcoves, although instead of a complete half-circle at the top, mine has round corners at the top.

What you could do for that top part is actually hang some round piece of wall art on the back wall of it at the very top, centering it just right, and then other things could go below it.

For the rest of the shelves, I think the some mix of books and decorative objects would be good.

When things like this are built-in, I consider their wooden shelves to actually be part of the interior architecture of the room, and therefore shouldn't be replaced with glass shelves. One reason for that is that in these pre-war buildings (and really the buildings that these are in -- like mine -- are kind of five-minutes-before that war) however good the construction was, not everything was precision-cut like most cases that tend to have glass in them, so you'd probably have to VERY carefully measure every single glass shelf in order to even make glass shelves look decent, I think.

In fact, in mine, because of a slight irregularity of the symmetry with the way the inner "ceiling" of mine is, made, I don't really even feel comfortable painting the back, because the paint contrast would call attention to those flaws. Yours may be more pristine, and if so, that might be a good answer. And even at that, it wouldn't have to be all THAT high of a contrast.

Good luck with it. Think of it as kind of a problem on the order of a math problem, instead of a real problem!

I was just arranging my own bookshelves this weekend, and found a Martha Stewart book, where she had a very similar alcove. She painted it a pale coral and the wall was a taupe and it looked stunning. (Of course, you should use contrasting colors that go with your room!) As usual, Wende is right--MS used it to display china, like a white tureen. I believe she left the shelves white, but am not totally sure.

Bringing up this old post as I had this question myself. Found some good examples on hgtv
http://hgtv.sndimg.com/HGTV/2010/05/11/Original_Flea-Market-Accessories-Shelf_s4x3_lg.jpg
http://hgtv.sndimg.com/HGTV/2010/05/11/Original_Flea-Market-Accessories-Shelf_s4x3_lg.jpg