A floating shelf is a wonderful tool for practical and decorative purposes. Whether you already have some hanging on your walls or you’d like to install a few, there are plenty of creative ways to use these multifunctional wood panels. Here’s how to make the most out of floating shelves in your home.

Practical Uses

Floating shelves are the perfect tool for maximizing your home space and making the most of your existing rooms. These shelves can serve practical uses by creating a much-needed extra surface area for various house tasks. Explore the following practical uses for inspiration in your own home.

Green Space

Have you always wanted to be a plant person but never made the space or time for it? Well, don’t let yourself wait any longer! Instead, use a series of floating shelves to make space for your new green area. Our maple floating wall shelves can handle up to 15 pounds of weight, so line it up with succulents, vines, and small potted plants.

You could consider making a functional green space by creating an herb garden in your kitchen. Arrange a handful of floating shelves adjacent to a kitchen window with good lighting. There, you can nourish, watch, and use your herbs and spices without too much extra work. This way, you can bring more green life into your home and add tasty homemade herbs to your dishes.

Storage Space

Floating shelves are the perfect way to incorporate more storage space into a room. For example, do you need more space for your spices or kitchen staples? What about a place for your extra towels and toilet paper? Or how about extra laundry detergent and laundry baskets? Whether it’s the kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, or elsewhere, you can add easy storage with floating shelves on the walls.

Mini Library

Books live on shelves, but they don’t need to be on a bookshelf. Instead, consider using floating shelves for your library, or at least a mini collection of unique books you want on display. With each slat of wood, you can hold a handful of your favorite classics or go-to reference items. Just make sure not to overload the shelves with too much weight. Otherwise, they’ll fall, and you could damage your book collection.

Organize Kids’ Rooms

Let’s face it: children are messy. You love your kids, but their rooms quickly turn into disaster areas. Keep the floors and surfaces organized by installing floating shelves in their rooms. If you have an older child, this could be a great way to showcase their trophies, prized toys, family photos, and more. You can also give them a shelf for their own decoration and design. A well-placed set of floating shelves in your child’s room will add surface area for their knickknacks and miscellaneous possessions that would otherwise litter the floor and their bed.

As you install these floating shelves in their room, ask where they’d like to place them. Depending on the size of the room, there may only be one or two options. But giving them a say in the process will help them feel ownership of their room, and they’ll be more likely to keep the shelves organized. If you don’t trust your child not to climb on the shelves, don’t install them over the bed.

Cute and Clean Nursery

Though different from a young or teenaged child’s room, a nursery can still benefit from floating shelves. As the parent, you’re responsible for keeping the place clean and accessible for your child as they grow. Your baby can’t appreciate the aesthetic beauty of a floating shelf in their nursery, but you can surely put baby wipes, diaper packs, clean baby clothes, and more on a floating shelf next to your changing table. With all these items in an easy-to-access place, you can make sure your child’s nursery is cute, clean, and functional.

Decorative Uses

Though decorating your floating shelves is making a function out of the wooden bar, it does serve more as a passive placement than an active instrument. Regardless of the definitional differences, you should explore these creative ways to decorate with floating shelves and spruce up your home décor game.

Wall Collage

Collages come in all shapes and sizes, with multiple materials composing one larger item. Floating wall shelves can help you compose a creative wall collage. Whether you decide to use family photos or colorful vintage posters, take your wall college into the third dimension. Instead of nailing photo frames directly to the wall, set a few up on their stands. This will give your collage visual texture and improve the viewing experience.

Accent Décor

Accent pieces are the best way to create a cohesive theme in your décor scheme. Trinkets and small baubles are fun in their own right, but when you arrange them in patterns together, they bring a whole new life to a space. Accent décor pieces are prime items to place on floating shelves, giving them non-cluttered surfaces on which to exist and shine on their own.

Display a Collection

When you display a collection, you want to maximize focus on your unique items. Regardless of your collection type, you should proudly show off your favorite pieces. If you’re an avid action figure collector, floating shelves are the perfect solution to put your rare, still-in-box, mint-condition pieces front and center. Or if you collect decorative teaspoons, you can place hanging racks on floating shelves for pleasure viewing and easy grabbing in the kitchen.

Understanding how to make the most out of floating shelves in your home can help you maximize your organization. The more time and thought you put into the shelving process, the more you’ll get out of it. If you have any questions about floating shelf usage or installation, reach out to our experts at Discount Kitchen Direct. We have a number of high-quality wood-based floating shelves for sale that will help you transform your home into a place of cute décor and calming organization.