Hanging shelves in the living room: varieties and design options

The shelf is a truly indispensable structure in the home, on which you can place china and crystal dishes, family photos, vases of flowers and books. However, today more and more shelves are used not only as some kind of link in the storage system, but also as a stylish element of the interior.

For modern interiors, designers offer a large selection of shelves with a variety of shapes, sizes and types of fastening. They can create a rather effective accent in the interior of a living room, children's room, hallway and even a bedroom. The real highlight will be the small multi-level shelves that connect the individual furniture modules. Designers often use this solution to achieve some unusual and creative effect.

Most often, hinged structures are placed in square or rectangular rooms, using them for zoning the space. Thanks to this, the functional and stylistic division of the room is easy and unobtrusive.

There are several types of shelves.

• Modular - they are made in the form of two planes and are installed on the same wall with the headset.
• Corner - these models are attached to adjacent walls, where they compactly and ergonomically fill the entire space.
• Horizontal - standard open options, the design of which is combined with the overall style of the room.

Shelves can be closed and open, wall-mounted and suspended, single and multi-level. The materials used for the manufacture of shelves include wood, metal, glass, plastic, polycarbonate, chipboard and laminate.The latter, as a rule, is quite popular - models from it look stylish.

But still, with all the importance of the shelves in the style design of the premises, one should not forget about their direct purpose.

In recent times, most of the collected works were kept in large shelves or special bookcases. Such furniture modules took up a lot of space, cluttered and visually reduced the space.

Most often, metal or wooden structures are used; a combination of these materials at the same time is allowed. Forms can be any - from standard to unusual, which gives the room its own individuality, zest, and favorably emphasizes the stylistic solution of the interior.

The most popular model is the combination of several crosses located at right angles to each other.

Other interesting designs include:

• multi-tiered models;
• with rounded corners;
• located vertically or horizontally;
• massive single-tiered.

Most often, books, souvenirs and other practical decor items are placed on the shelves. However, for lovers of home flora, shelves can be an excellent container for indoor plants. This solution is optimal if the flowers on the windows do not fit or block the daylight. Placing plants on shelves can serve another purpose - this way you can reliably hide some wall defects, for example, spots or cracks on the surface.

For plants, metal structures are usually used. They are quite strong and stable, and can easily support the weight of a flower, substrate and pot. In addition, metal is more resistant to moisture than, for example, wood.

In recent years, it has become fashionable to decorate niches in the walls. They often become a forced measure designed to hide some of the structural features of the room. You can simply turn a lack of decoration into an advantage - by arranging shelves in the niches. In this case, the design of the shelves must fully correspond to the general stylistic design of the surrounding interior.

Today, designers are increasingly moving away from stereotypes and creating individual furniture compositions for interiors using shelves. That's why the most extravagant options appeared on sale... For example, compositions of shelves of several shades or models depicting the outlines of a certain geometric figure.

And although the trend of recent years is minimalism and an abundance of free space, bare walls most often evoke melancholy and do not look very beautiful. So, the wall behind the sofa is usually devoid of any furniture modules... In the old days, pictures were often hung there. Today, such a solution is not so relevant, therefore, designers recommend hanging small shelves there. On them you can place family photos or some kind of pleasant decor elements that make the room more comfortable, habitable and warm at home.

Hanging shelves can be placed on any other empty wall. For example, TV shelves are placed opposite the sofa. The main thing is to observe the measure and make sure that the space does not turn out to be overflowing with unnecessary details, including shelves. Otherwise, it will seem simply cluttered, which is unacceptable in many modern styles.

Hinged modules can be designed in a wide variety of styles. Let's evaluate a few of them.

High-tech - this direction involves glass or metal shelves, made in a zigzag shape. Keep in mind - do not place too many decorative elements on them. A photograph in a frame or a small vase of flowers will be quite enough, since such modules in themselves are already a separate art object.

Modern is the simplest version of rectangular hanging shelves. They should be distinguished by laconic geometry, restrained shades and lack of ornaments. As for the content, a couple of books and a small decorative element will be enough here.

Provence - in this style, shelves are rarely used, especially since they are not allowed to be used for storing items. The structure should be made of white painted wood. You can place a vase or porcelain figurine on the shelves.

Country is a style that uses rustic motifs. Shelves should be made of wood, although openwork wrought iron elements are also acceptable. Usually, decorative elements are placed on them in large quantities, completely filling all the free space.

Baroque is a pompous style in which shelves become a real work of art and interior decoration. Usually they are made with all sorts of stucco details and carved elements; the color scheme always contains gilding, typical for this style.

You can see how to make do-it-yourself hanging shelves in the next video.