Nate Berkus’ 2 Game-Changing Tips That’ll Transform Your Bookcase
For some people, bookshelves serve one purpose: to store, well, books. But you can make your bookshelves shine and become a statement in your space with some simple tweaking and styling. Nate Berkus has an entire methodology for styling bookcases that he breaks down fully in his latest book, but he was kind enough to share his two main tips for making bookcases look organized and thoughtful.
“One of the things you’ll find in my book, Foundations, is how to style different surfaces in your home: bookshelves, coffee tables, etc,” Berkus says in a recent Instagram video. “I wanted to walk you through my own bookshelves.”
Berkus says he doesn’t want to give too much away from his book, but he does share two tips for bookshelf styling — the first of which is switching up the direction of the books.
Nate Berkus’ 2 Tips for Getting Gorgeously Organized Bookshelves
“As you can see, some books go vertically, some books go horizontally,” Berkus says. “And when books go horizontally, I try to put something interesting on top. Like this is an old geode,” he explains, sharing how it “evens out” the shelf and creates a pyramid shape when placed on top of the books.
His second tip is to skip books on certain shelves altogether. “I’ll switch from heavy books [on one shelf] to just decorative accessories [on another],” he says. In the shelf next to the horizontal book display, Berkus actually hung a small piece of artwork on the back wall of the shelf and then decorated the foreground with pieces of pottery from his travels.
Berkus says that incorporating objects into your shelves makes your home reflect your hobbies and interests because bits and pieces of your personality are sprinkled throughout.
These two styling tips can be employed whether you have large coffee table books, small novellas, shallow shelves, or deep cubbies. It’s all about adding texture with shape and weight to make the eye roam.
Give Berkus’ bookcase styling tips a try, and you might find that your once-cluttered shelves are now the eye-pleasing focal point in your living room!