Create a #shelfie like The Home Edit for Insta success

You might expect that we like a good #shelfie as much as a #selfie. And you’d be right. As fans of beautiful homes, great decorating schemes, and organization ideas that deliver rooms that are good looking as well as neat and clutter-free, we love to scroll Insta to check out the best.

Our appreciation of an organized home also means we are huge fans of Netflix show The Home Edit, where professional tidiers, sorters, and home stylers Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin perform their magic. So when the pair shared a #shelfie on Insta recently, we studied their image carefully to see how they pulled off all that loveliness.

You can take inspiration and ideas from this Home Edit-created #shelfie below, plus discover plenty more tips for clocking up the Instagram likes with your own. And if you’re after more shelving ideas, just head over to our special feature.

#Shelfie tips from The Home Edit

1. These shelves are attention-grabbing in a simple combination of black and white. We’re used to Clea and Joanna’s rainbow-style arrangements when the organizing geniuses use the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet of the rainbow to sort items and make a great display at the same time. Here, though, the pair don’t need to use colour as a form of labelling. And, while the arrangement is restrained in the two opposite colours, it is impactful because of the high contrast.

2. Look carefully and you’ll see just a couple of objects break from the strict black and white combo. The book on the far left of the lowest shelf and the one next to it introduce just a few accents of colour that pop, adding interest to the display.

3. Another lesson to take note of from this Home-Edit #shelfie is that good arrangements consist of objects and space. Leave gaps between items so they can be appreciated individually as well as registering as a group. 

4. Think odd numbers for display success when you’re composing a #shelfie. Here, each of the shelves has three distinct groupings of items. The effect is roughly symmetrical overall, but the look is more informal than that.

Only have the room on your shelves for two objects or groups? Instead of choosing a matching pair or selection of items, which can look very old-fashioned, show off two slightly different items or groups at opposite ends of the shelf.

5. A theme is good in a display – like the cameras in this one – but ring the changes, too. Not every pile of books is topped with one of these which would make the overall look too rigid.

6. The books and decorative objects the professional organizers have used are arranged into pyramid shapes that you can reproduce in your own displays. You don’t have to make a pile of items, though. Just choose three items of different heights you can show off in a formation that makes a triangle of their heights for a similar effect.

7. If your #shelfie majors in straight lines, take inspiration from this version and add some contrasting curves, too. The variety makes the whole more appealing.

8. Think about the shelves themselves when you’re planning your #shelfie. In white with black handles on the cupboard doors below they’re part of the whole here. 

9. Piling up books for your #shelfie as the organizing duo have for theirs? Line up the spines at the front and work from large at the base to smallest at the top to get an effect like this. Anything that verges on untidy or is teetering is distracting.

10. If you run out of books with black and white themed covers, there’s a good cheat here. Just turn any outliers round so it’s the white pages that show and not the spine.