I have tried to wrap my head around what I want to do in the living room to spruce up the space.  It’s been a few weeks of staring at the space and endlessly searching Pinterest for inspiration, but with a budget of practically zero dollars, I had to be creative in how to spruce up the space.  So once I got the motivation to get things changed, I decided to start small and change-up the shelves in the living room.

I started by taking everything off of the shelves.  Then I discovered that the shelves were filthy, so I had to clean them.  I used some of my favorite cleaning products that I shared a while ago.

Once the shelves were cleaned, I decided to adjust the height of the shelves.  I wasn’t liking how I couldn’t fit things on certain shelves.  I made some of the shelves have more height in between, while others were closer together.  I felt that this gave the shelves some interest instead of looking like it came directly from the store.

Now that the shelves were adjusted, I needed to fill the space!  I decided to start by sorting the books into colors based on the books’ bindings.  I know it sounds crazy, but I have seen a lot of inspiration on Pinterest where books are stored on shelves based on color, and I thought it was intriguing.

I had a ton of piles on the floor once I got all the bindings color sorted.  I decided to group all the blues, greens, and yellows together and the pinks, reds, and oranges together.  I had a ton of white binding books and black binding books, so I left those in their own groupings.

I love decorating with books.  I love to have my children see all the books that both my husband and myself have read or are reading.  By displaying them throughout the house, I feel that they are exposed to an environment that encourages literature.

Taking the books, I started to fill the shelves with different placements of books.  I put some on the sides, some standing up and others as bookends.  Then I went on a shopping trip around the house.  I was looking for any little tchotchke (trinkets) that we had around the house that I could use to decorate the shelves.  I found a bunch of stuff in the basement and our master bedroom.  I also had some picture frames that I put away as I didn’t have any space for them.  I also found some items to use in our entry way table.

Pulling everything on the floor in the living room, I started searching for things to fit the space.  I never like decorating with junk just to fill the space, so I make sure the little trinkets are either meaningful or completely go with our style.  I have some miniature suitcases that we used at our wedding, a candle holder that was given to me from one of my students back when I was teaching, and a decorative birdcage I had from an old apartment.  I just love it when the things that fill up the spaces have a story behind them!

I would put some things on the shelves then take a step back to see if it looked right.  I would stand in a few different areas of the room and sit on the couch.  I was trying really hard not to over think it.

When I was happy with how the shelves looked, I put back all the other items I took from other rooms around the house.  Then I sat down to admire my beautiful shelves!  Now I feel the entire living room has truly come together!