Open Shelving 101: a guide to DIY shelving

Are you team open shelving? Or not so much? I find there is a great deal of controversy when it comes to this question. If it is not obvious by browsing my Instagram feed, I am totally team open shelving. Over the last year I have gotten soooo many questions about open shelving in my home and I thought it might be beneficial to put together a fun blog post all about, OPEN SHELVING 😉

This post contains affiliate links, please read my disclaimer for details.

Why I Love Open Shelving

First, let me explain. When we first started building our home, I did not have any open shelving in our kitchen plans. However, as the build went on, I kept realizing I was drawn to all these kitchens on Pinterest that had open shelving. Even though I loved them, I was nervous to actually put some in my own home. I think people are often hesitant because they worry they will collect so much dust, or they won’t be able to keep things looking organized and tidy. However, I have found neither of these potential issues to be the case.

kitchen floating shelves — My kitchen open shelving was built by our builder. But there are plenty of prebuilt to purchase and if want to you browse more fun kitchen gems, click here to shop other items.

Having the shelves in the kitchen actually made me want to keep things organized and because we put dishes that we use nearly every day on them, they do not collect dust easily.

For our kitchen I decided to only do two small shelves and the rest I would do cabinets. I liked this because it allowed me to have the best of both worlds. Our open shelves in the kitchen and our bathrooms were custom built by our builder and I frequently get asked questions about them. Sadly, I don’t have much information on them and I can’t link them for you since they were custom built. But there are plenty of prebuilt options.

DIY Open Shelving

The longer I lived in our home, the more I have found myself wanting more shelving. So, not long after we moved in I found some shelving brackets online that I absolutely loved. Here’s why I like them so much, 1. they are sleek and 2. they are durable! These shelving brackets can be purchased on Amazon from DIYCARTEL, and I have linked them here.

open shelving in a bedroom DIY master bedroom modern farmhouse — I love what this shelf added to our bedroom. This could look stark and unwelcoming, but with a little personality here and a little there it comes to life. Click here to shop this space!

The other super nice thing about these brackets? They are budget friendly! We created this loooong shelf above our bed using 5 of the Industrial Steel DIYCARTEL brackets and then bought a very inexpensive board from Home Depot for the shelf. I love that because these brackets are so sleek, it almost looks as though the shelf is floating.

master bedroom open shelving decorate with plants and framed art

My Favorite Open Shelving Brand

After I discovered how much I loved the brackets that we used for our bedroom from DIYCARTEL, I started looking at more of their products on Amazon. I knew more shelving was in my future ;). Next spot I put more shelves was in our dining room. A big perk of this shelf is the added space it allows for storage of kitchen items. And another spot to add a touch of color and interest.

Open Shelving in our Dining Room DIY project install yourself storage options

What I think is so cool about this shelf is how unique it is. It’s extremely sleek but also very durable! It might be hard to tell from the photo, but this shelf is actually quite heavy. I love the industrial feel and how it fits in our dining room space effortlessly. These shelves would also work amazing in a kitchen for dishes!

We’re not done yet!

I decided I wanted even more open shelving as a mantel above our fireplace. When I was considering what I wanted for the mantel I looked at the entire design of the fireplace structure. My design for it was quite modern, so I wanted a mantel that matched. Notice how the brackets compliment the color of my dining room open shelving, but nothing has to matchy match. We ended up using two sets of the Industrial Pipe Shelf Brackets from DIYCARTEL and they worked perfect for our space! A hefty hold and a modern look.

Open Shelving As A Mantel industrial modern — There’s a few fun finds in this area of the house so I’d encourage you to click here to shop this space!

Lastly, I want to share are recent addition of shelves in our living room area. These are the most recent shelves I have put in and they were insanely easy to install. I again loved how sleek these shelves were and that they basically look like they are floating. It’s hard to imagine that wall without this shelving. I have linked them here for you to check out!

Living Room Floating Shelves — More fun things to be had in this photo too, so click here to shop this photo!

Are You Team Open Shelving Now??

Open shelving is not for everyone, but if you’re someone who likes to change things up in your home frequently, shelves are perfect! They allow you the freedom to style and re-style your home without putting more nail holes into the walls. I know my husband can appreciate that 😉 HA!

As always, thanks for stopping by and I hope this was helpful! If you have any questions, send me a message!

Happy Creating,

Holly

This post was sponsored by DIYCARTEl, however all opinions and recommendations are my own.