A Mid-Century Styling Challenge!
If you love mid-century design and architecture as much as we do, I’m sure you can imagine our excitement when we got the opportunity to bring apartment 2B inside the iconic Herbert Gardens building at 186 The Terrace to the market, a true 1960s gem!
This spacious three bedroom, two bathroom apartment has the perfect bones for a mid-century lovers decorating dream come true and we knew that the wonderful Bridget at POP staging would bring all the right pieces in and make this space truly shine. But, we’re always up for a challenge, especially one where we can get a little creative! So, right before James jetted off to Japan for three weeks, we decided to claim the gorgeous built-in shelving unit in the living room as our next secondhand styling canvas.
If you’ve been following Anji Foster Property for a while, you might remember some of our previous secondhand styling challenges, a series where we set off to the local op shops with a budget and attempt to style a piece of furniture with only secondhand finds. In the past James and I made this into somewhat of a competition with our followers over on Instagram voting for the best styling job, but as the shelving unit in apartment 2B would be our biggest project to date, we decided to join forces on this one.
With a fairly large amount of space to fill on this shelf, we quickly realised what an undertaking this styling job would be, but with a little creativity and our mid-century theme in mind, I think we pulled it off!
If you’ve been on the hunt for some special pieces to style a shelf in your own space, or maybe just fill in a few of those awkward gaps, I would highly recommend popping into your local op shops. If you have the time and patience, there are some absolute treasures to be found and if you need a pinch of inspiration, here are our top tips for getting thrifty with home decor…
It’s All About The Spine
When embarking on this styling challenge, we knew that hunting for some books to fill out the shelves would be a good first step. Of course, finding books with contents that interest you makes the most sense, but from a purely aesthetic point of view, I would recommend looking for some colourful or interesting spines.
We were lucky enough to stumble across a large collection of vintage books with various colourful spines that then inspired our colour palette going forward, and they were an absolute bargain at $20 for the full set! When hunting for books at op shops, I would also suggest taking a peek underneath the sleeves, sometimes you’ll find a gorgeous hardback just hiding under that old plastic.
Vases, Vases & More Vases
It became evident quite quickly in our mission that vases would play a big role in the overall aesthetic of our styling job. Not only are they relatively common in secondhand stores, but they also provide great variations in height and shape, adding some visual interest to the shelves. We ended up including four different vases in the final set up, each bringing a different colour and texture to the shelf, as well as a great opportunity to display some dried flowers or greenery.
Dishes Aren’t Just For Food
One of my personal favourite finds was a beautiful green and yellow ceramic dish decorated with foliage and birds. It was one of the pricier pieces that we picked up, but it really tied our colour palette together.
When it came to finding a place for said dish on the shelving unit, we realised that the visual impact would be a little lost if it was positioned face up, so instead we turned it into a little piece of art, resting against the back of the shelf on full display. Finding a small stand to display a special ceramic dish or even attaching a hook to the back and mounting it on the wall is such a fun and budget friendly art alternative, I’ll definitely be pulling that little hack out again!
Don’t Forget To Inject Some Fun!
With our plethora of vases, books and ceramics, the overall aesthetic of the shelf was colourful and on theme, but missing a little soul and personality. So, that’s where the Russian nesting dolls and wooden fruit entered the picture!
James definitely doubted me when I added the little nesting dolls to our op shop basket, but with the pops of colour and natural wood tones tying into our palette, they brought some much needed personality to the shelves. The wooden apples were a great find, tying into our mid-century theme perfectly and adding some more organic shapes to the mix.
Whilst we of course wanted the final result to be stylish, adding these touches of fun and personality took this shelf from an aesthetically pleasing array of objects to a collection that feels like it belongs in a home.
