THE WINNER AND STYLING BOOKSHELVES

Happy Friday y'all!  How ironic that the winner of the YELLOW giveaway is the Pink Pagoda?  I worked with Jennifer on the One Room Challenge.....you can see pictures of her finished room here.

She has great style and I am hoping that she can use a little yellow in her life :)  Jennifer also has some great things to buy so go see!

A couple of weeks ago when I posted about the bookshelves I did for my ORC Melanie from My Sweet Savannah emailed me and asked if I would help her with a few shelves in her dining room.

I have been reading her blog since I was knee high to a grasshopper.....well not really but since the break of dawn....OK...since I discovered blogs.

She is quite talented and one time I saw a picture of her in a cowboy hat and was so jealous of how much she rocked that look.

Doing shelves virtually is a whole new world for me.  I am visual and need to be able to stand back and case the joint while I am doing them  [drinking wine is always optional].  But she was persistent and assured me that it could be done.  I am nothing if not easily persuaded (remember how Linda threatened me about trying to pull out of the ORC!) folding like a cheap tent as they say.

So she emailed me a picture of what they looked like.  

I thought they looked pretty good myself but I can understand that sometimes you can be too close to the situation...and need a new eye!

I had to figure out a way to do this so I printed out the picture and got some tracing paper.  Using mostly what she already had and....here is the first rough draft.  

She emailed me a few pictures of various things she had hoarded  laying around so I used a few of them..... starting with the canvas in the middle.

Pretty dang primitive....I know.

We kept playing around with it for a few days....emailing pictures back and forth....and then the weekend came along and we took a break.

I think she uncorked the wine and worked on those shelves like Jackson Pollack on a canvas!

The next image I received was completely different from  the previous one.....really.

After some scooching....tweaking....."do you have one of these?"....do you have 2 of those?".....about 15 or 20 e-mails back and forth with  pictures.....we declared "case closed".

She can't fool me....I know bloggers....and they like to mess with stuff!  I give it about 2 weeks.....

She mentioned a plant in the corner and I said....yes some greenery would be awesome to tie in with the green bottles......5 seconds later another email.

Girl is good.  And fast.

You need to go here to see her pictures because not only does she look damn good in a cowboy hat she also takes much better pictures than me.

The whole process made me think about the art of display.  AND...that made me think of Pottery Barn because they do have quite the team of stylist.  One thing I know and that is.....create an arch.

I took some pictures with my iphone the other day to show you.

See?
Here is another one..

Start in the middle of the shelf and work out.

You are going to get the point after a few more of these....

Again....

Even here with these shelves....

Wanna poke my eyes out yet.  Bad pictures I know but I am just trying to make a point.  Are there exceptions to the rule?  Of course.  

Because of the wall restrictions...but still an arch! 

Still an arch.

OK...a good example here is that on the second shelf they hung the middle plate to get some height.  The third row they kept everything pretty much the same...

So if you are struggling just use the guidelines of "shelving 101"....start in the middle with the tallest item....and then layer the back with books, trays and plates.  After that stand back...take a sip of wine and see where you can edit.

That's all I got today....

Sherika