It’s me again: Your friendly neighborhood organizing expert. I used to have a flat plastic dish drying rack that did the trick, but I found myself constantly needing to clean it because of standing water and dust. This one is perfection with the bamboo and two tiers, and while lots of people use it freestyle, I highly recommend a drying mat to go under it.

Promising review: “We’ve been using this daily for almost a year and it hasn’t shown a single bit of wear! I was worried it would start getting grimy with all of the water. A stylish must-buy!” —Obvibasic

Price: $22

When it comes to shelf styling, less is usually more. So, don’t let an empty shelf intimidate you.  Whether it’s a free-standing book shelf, a floating shelf, or even a uniquely shaped shelf, I have you covered with tips for effortlessly styling shelves in a kid’s room.

These black metal bookshelves are from IKEA and can be found right here.

How to Style a Kids Bookshelf

First, it goes without saying, that kids rooms don’t have to be styled. Period. If you don’t have the energy or interest in doing it, or you kids want to do their own thing without parent input, great!

That said, if you have an interest in keeping your kids shelving a little bit organized and a little bit cute, keep reading…

If you want to keep things super simple, display ledges like these, are really easy to style because there’s really only room for books and a few stuffies. Easy as can be, right?

So, you can do something fun like arrange them by color. Or keep it simple and arrange in varying heights, with the tallest books in the back and shortest books in the front.

If you opt for a book shelf that is a tiny bit deeper and/or has a higher lip, you can add more. But when it comes to kids shelves, less is more.

Start with a clean slate.

Take all the books off the shelf so the shelves are completely blank and separate out the books that you and/or your child read most often along with the books with the coolest covers. Start a new pie for heavy books that most likely can’t be supported by the book shelves and store those in another area if possible.

Then, start adding back.

Next, start adding your child’s favorite books to the shelf closest to the ground, so they can more easily reach those on their own. Then start working in any other books that have great covers or fun pops of color.

I like to layer book sizes and colors being sure to keep a balance amongst the shelves. For example, we have a lot of books with white covers. So I use those as a base and then sprinkle in the colorful books throughout the three shelves so there’s not too much color or too much white visually in one spot. This helps the eye continually move around and makes the shelves feel considered and well-styled (in a casual, effortless way).

Want something more colorful? 

You can always arrange books according to color, for a rainbow effect that kids are sure to love. Just separate books on the floor by color and add them pop them back onto your shelves in color order…or however you’d like.

My friend, Kelly from Studio DIY, has a great tutorial for creating rainbow shelves in a kids room.

Add some decorative items.

Now that the books are taken care of, I like to add a few toys or stuffed animals. This helps keep things from feeling too stuffy (it is a kid’s room after all), and breaks up all the straight lines.

If possible, I love using slightly larger toys with a thin profile, like this Moon Picnic face puzzle for example. I don’t have it in these pictures, but we do have one and it works great for slim profile shelves especially.

Then, I sprinkle in a few soft toys too, like these lightweight Maileg stuffed animals. They don’t weigh down the shelf and add a little bit of whimsy and softness to these simple shelves.

And that’s really all it takes to style kids bookshelves. Not too complicated, but if you have any questions about your specific shelves, let me know.