grown-up furniture and my foray into shelf styling

Finally, the results of Zach's game of Ikea Tetris. Alright, here's what we were dealing with before our new purchase.

yippy skippy

It's been this way since Christmas. Before that, we had the tree in the corner.

Aw, look at the little baby with the MASSIVE bald spot. 
Teehee. Her hair's coming in nicely now.

And before that, the TV was diagonal in the corner which was ergonomically pleasing from a TV watching perspective, but it wasted a ton of space.

I've been scouting out these VITTSJÖ shelves from Ikea.

Can you believe they're only $70?

And gleaning inspiration from the "Pin"osphere. 

Drexel Heritage's Pinacle Etagere, formerly sold by Higdon Furniture

via Ikea

via Centsational Girl

I knew how I wanted to arrange the pair of shelves we purchased, but I didn't want to just throw items up there. The art of shelf styling takes time, thought, a collection of objects from multiple time periods, and, honestly, taste. I study everything that Emily Henderson and Jenny Komenda do.  

 Here's a post that Jenny, of Little Green Notebook wrote on arranging books by both color and genre. 

Those of you who've taken the time to style your books know that this took her a LOT of time and thought. 

The results are really pleasing to my eye.

 I've searched all evening, but I can't find Emily's post where she describes her shelf styling secrets. 

(This image is from her portfolio.)

So, without further stalling, here's what I came up with.

 We're gonna call this "during" since we still need some artwork in the center.

It was fun to come up with all of the vignettes. I tried to be mindful of color, texture and height. There will definitely be some tweaking along the way (some has already happened since this picture), but I'm loving the look so far. Here are some close-ups.

  

Those hatboxes are from Rittenhouse Square in Philly! Pretty cool. 

 All of those little boxes were gifts my Dad brought back from his travels.

Pen and ink by my talented sis, Rebekah. (Check out her prints on Etsy!)

Couldn't resist the succulent under glass. It's terribly impractical, 

since I have to take it out to the kitchen every couple of days to get some sun, but so far I don't mind.

I'm loving this old toolbox for CDs. The other things on that shelf will have to go soon, though. 

Baby girl is getting curious.

Here's the before and after, one more time.

Ah, so much better. and it makes the living room look a lot bigger. Now I get to sit back, watch some Rachel Zoe, and figure out what to put on the wall above the TV. 

Featured on Miss Mustard Seed's Furniture Feature Friday and Decor and the Dog's link party.

a truth universally acknowledged

I. Love. Pride & Prejudice.

Someone lent us the  5+ hour BBC version when I was in early high school, and I've been bound by this story ever since (not to mention in love with Colin Firth).

Since the novel was originally published 200 years ago last week, it seems only fitting that I share my little collection with you.

I first started collecting copies of Pride & Prejudice in college. I got the idea from Mel Gibson's character, Jerry Fletcher, in "Conspiracy Theory" who manically buys A Catcher in the Rye every time he's in a bookstore. I wanted to be an un-crazy version of that. However, that gets expensive, plus, the vast majority that I see are cheapy copies with boring cover art. So I tried to limit myself to one-of-a-kind copies or to buying them during important events.

This rather nondescript version is actually pretty special since we bought it right after we were engaged. 

We ducked into a little used bookshop right after Zach flew to Philly and scared me half to death 

by showing up on my doorstep with something sparkly.

This one's so pretty. I got it from my sister and bro-in-law for Christmas last year.

They've also given me this one:

 

Tons of fun. Definitely the only bit of Marvel that I'm a fan of.

Then there are the weird ones:

 Don't ever read this. It's hilariously awful. I got it as a joke, but it's just sad. 
It's supposed to be about Darcy and Elizabeth after they get married, 
but it's basically juts a sex book. 
If I had to read about Darcy's burning loins one more time...

 And of course you've gotta have P,P&Z. Honestly, I've never read this, 
I got it for Zach. It combines both of our obsessions 
in one gross, so-far-from-what-the-original-author-intended book. 

 I hadn't added to my collection in quite some time, but with the birth of my daughter came another new addition:

 Starting her off young. ; )

 Cracks me up. But who are we kidding? 

This is Mommy's book, Jaina's just borrowing it for a little while.

 It lives way up on the top shelf. 

She can play with it once she learns that books are for reading, not for eating.

 You can tell just how far I let my obsession get by what I let myself make this summer.

 That's right. That's a cross stitch. Hey, I was on bed-rest. I needed something to occupy my fingers and my brain, and this was perfect. 

Do you have a favorite book? One that you don't mind reading over and over? I hope my baby girl grows up loving to read as much as I do.  

Stay tuned for some fun projects we're doing around the house!