EnYour decorative desires might be squashed by a lack of floor space, but try looking up—do you have extra room to play with overhead? It’s not a fix in most spaces, but if you’re lucky enough to have high ceilings, you might try figuring out how you can put them to use. You wouldn’t want to use your high shelves for anything that’s for day-to-day use, but for books, records, tchotchke collections, or even offseason clothes, high shelving can make the first eight feet of your living space a lot less cluttered. In the pictured Amsterdam home, designer Madelon Oudshoorn Spaargaren opted for an extra tall bookshelf with a built in ladder—so no stress about inaccessible top shelves.
Slim it down
Particularly in the kitchen, whether it’s because they’d block prep space or a window, some walls don’t lend themselves to adding typical deep shelving. In this 1970s bungalow redesign by Côte de Folk founder Sophie Rowell, a set of slim shelves adds space for bottles and glasses, freeing up room in the closed cupboards without creating a cramped feeling in the open space.
Look underneath
