Styling the Living Room Built-ins

The living room built-ins are complete (at least until I tweak something) so I wanted to share some photos with you.

I am definitely not a styling expert, but I'm learning.  If you want to see some styling eye candy, look no further than Emily Henderson, Kristin Jackson, or Caitlin (whose blog I just recently discovered).  I am so in awe of their talents. The way that they layer the items in their vignettes is amazing.  But I digress...

For my built-ins, I started with my white ferris wheel (which I had to have after first laying eyes on it in this episode of Secrets from A Stylist).  The artwork to the right of the ferris wheel is something I whipped up a couple of years ago when we needed a small piece of art for the shelves in our dining room in Illinois.  It's a 'for now' piece.  The scale is a bit too small.  The vases are from West Elm.  

The art on the top shelf can be found here.  It is advertised as nursery art, but in this household adults take naps, too.  The turquoise vases on the left are from Target.  The cake stand was a TJ Maxx find years ago and the red candles are from Target.

The shelf below the ferris wheel holds a wooden tray with a cow on it from Target, a faux succulent arrangement from Marshall's, and some World Market candlesticks.  The slice of wood that the faux succulents are resting on is from a plum tree that was in our yard in Illinois.  During a storm, it split down the middle and we saved a few pieces during the clean up process.  To the right of this grouping is our stereo, which I apparently cut out of many of my pictures.

Moving downward, we have a row of books and then a woven tray with dog toys.  We use a tray because Amos is so short.  (Do you think that bed is large enough for him?)  To the right of the dog toy tray there are more books (which I turned around to decrease the amount of visible color a bit) and a bowl from Target.  The basket above contains my CD collection and was a TJ Maxx find.  (I always shop TJ Maxx or Marshall's when looking for inexpensive baskets.  Sadly, we don't have a Home Goods.)

Moving on to the strange cubbies.  

The white ceramic squirrel and fox are from Target.  The gold sphere is from either TJ Maxx or Marshall's (can't recall which store) and was originally a rusty brown color.  Some Rustoleum metallic gold spray paint changed that.  I stacked up some of my magazines (I'm sure the pile will grow) and threw a small Ikea vase on top.  The mantel clock is from West Elm.  

The Sansevieria plant (also known as a snake plant or mother-in-law tongue plant) was a gift from my mother-in-law (ironic?).  It's planted in a plastic pot but I placed it inside a wooden planter that I found at Hobby Lobby and spray painted white.  I added the gold accents last week. 

So that is how the shelves of our built-ins are looking these days.  We've come a long way.