Statement Art + How I Styled our Built-ins

Oh my goodness! We are less than 1 week away from the Final Reveal of the Kitchen + Family Room Refresh. This 8 week One Room Challenge timeline sure moves quick, y’all!! Since most of the major work was done early on in the challenge, I’ve spent the last week or so styling and adding the finishing touches. This week I took the walls & built-ins up a notch with brand new art from Minted. Come see the gorgeous new Statement Art + How I Styled our Built-ins.

This post is sponsored by Minted, but all thoughts, opinions, photography & styling are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that help make This is our Bliss possible!

To get caught up on the rest of the posts in the One Room Challenge, be sure to check them out here!

ORC Week 1: Kitchen + Family Room Refresh before photos here 
ORC Week 2: Kitchen + Family Room design plans + mood boards
ORC Week 4: 5 Lessons I’ve Learned from Having my Kitchen Cabinets Professionally Painted 
ORC Week 5: New Kitchen Lights
ORC Week 6: The Best Neutral Vases for Styling Your Home 
ORC Week 7: Statement Art + How I Styled Our Built-ins
ORC Week 8: Kitchen + Family Room Refresh Reveal

STATEMENT ART + HOW I STYLED MY BUILT-INS

Since our Kitchen & Family Room are basically one shared space, I don’t have a ton of open walls. We have the window and sliding door, the kitchen cabinets, 3 doorways [leading to various parts of the house] and the built-ins. However, I was left with 2 spots to incorporate some new art and Minted is always the first place I look! I’ve brought a number of their fine art prints by independent artists for years now.

I received 2 beautiful statement pieces and some smaller ones to aid me in styling the shelves.

LARGE STATEMENT WALL ART

The first one is this awesome black & white abstract piece I hung above our bar cabinet. I haven’t switched up the décor on top of the furniture since we first brought it home, but I think the pieces work so well layered in front of the art.

I ordered it in a 30″ x 40″ print with the matte black metal frame. 

Obsessed with how it bold & dramatic this little nook looks.

The 2nd piece is unbelievably stunning. This neutral abstract art print is actually the largest piece I’ve ever ordered from Minted, so was especially excited to see the scale in our home. I ordered the 40″ x 50″ size.

At first I was planning to get 2 prints and stack them on top of each other to the left of the built-ins, but after chatting with a girlfriend, I decided one super-sized art print was definitely the answer!

The print itself is pretty simple which is what I wanted since its so close to the decorative art & knick knacks on the shelves to the right.

The sleek black frame is subtly bold & really balances out the light colored walls. A nice contrast, while carrying the dark color of the painted bookshelves throughout the space.

If you’ve seen my stories, then you’ll know about the Olive tree saga. I finally landed on one I love for this corner. It looks so incredibly beautiful coupled up next to the art piece. Another reason I wanted the 40″ x 50″ print size. I didn’t want the olive tree to cover too much of it, but rather casually layered in front of it.

HOW I STYLED THE BUILT-INS

Now let’s take a peek at the styled shelves! I got several new Minted pieces to mix in with some of my books and other décor. The art pieces provide visual interest on each shelf and a few of the new pieces actually hold special meaning to me.

I believe the items on your shelves should tell a story and be filled with things you love. 

Both to look at and deep down in your heart.

The shelves in the bookcases / built-ins around our house are always getting zhushed and updated, so there is plenty of opportunity to swap things in and out if I don’t find myself loving what I see. Plus its fun to switch things up seasonally and for each holiday. The base usually stays the same with a few small exchanges for seasonally appropriate or fun & festive additions!

I added this bold framed print up top and then a geometric framed canvas right below and then added decorative items to the left and right.

Trinket boxes, candles, plants, glass objects, candles, vases and orbs are some of the items I use to style the shelves. You can see my neutral vase round-up I shared after I first added that pretty white vase to the built-ins.

I love it so much.

You’ll always find coffee table books stacked on various shelves around here! I love buying books with unique titles as well as ones that hold special meaning or that are personalized to our family. You can see some examples in this post here.

On the bottom shelf, I added this small canvas. It’s called Chicago Winter – a small tribute to our old city and a season we no longer have to suffer through ha!

Their prints look so good in canvas form! This was the first time I had one done this way versus having it framed.

And on the right side, my *boyfriend* found it’s way up top. 🙂 So many of you loved when I shared him filled with eucalyptus clippings in my Spring Tour this year. He was a HomeGoods find and I’ve seen similar ones popping up all over lately.

The most special art piece of all the ones I ordered is most definitely this custom sketch of our first home. All you have to do is add the item to your cart and then personalize with a photo of your home along with your custom caption, including the address & the dates you lived there. I want to make another one of our last house in Illinois. 

This custom house portrait would make such wonderful gift a loved one this holiday season. You get to approve a digital proof within 24 hours and then it ships rather quickly after processing!

I just added it to a thrifted gold bamboo frame I already had and placed it on the shelf.

More books stacked below and a sweet little canvas on the bottom shelf. I was originally planning to use this print in Winston’s Nursery, but ended up going with this one instead. I’ve kept in on my Favorites list on the Minted site ever since. 

Now was the perfect time & place to use this art. I get to peek at it everyday when I’m lounging in the Family Room with my people that I so love. I got the 8′ x 8″ canvas so it can fit on a small shelf.

This post ended up being quite a bit longer than I originally intended, but hopefully you grabbed some shelf styling inspo.

Also, when ordering art for your walls – go big or go home. I’ll always love a good gallery wall of smaller frames, but these large scale art pieces make such a statement in our newly refreshed spaces.

TO SHOP ALL OF OUR MINTED PIECES IN THIS SPACE & OTHER PRINTS I’VE USED IN OUR HOME, CLICK BELOW:

And now to see what we’ve accompished in this ORC so far…

KITCHEN + FAMILY ROOM REFRESH PLANS & TO DO LIST:

• paint walls – had them painted in August 
• buy new couch — we sold our old sectional & ordered new one in July 
• paint kitchen cabinets & paint kitchen island  – see the sneak peek here!
• paint family room built-ins
• replace kitchen chandelier & pendants over island – installed!
• Swap out faucet – still looking! Hoping we can figure this piece out over the weekend 😉
• figure out backsplash in kitchen??? – probably going to wait to replace
• New kitchen & family room rugs – delivered! Need to set them up!
• new coffee table  – delivered!
• swap out throw pillows 
• style built-ins
• hang new wall art 
• Miscellaneous décor & projects: 
  • __DIY planter pot – in progress_____
  • ___________________________
  • ___________________________

MY SPONSORS

I also have some wonderful sponsors to thank for partnering with me on this challenge. A big shout out to Minted, Hudson Valley Lighting and Liberty Hardware for their continued support over the years. I truly couldn’t do these projects without them!

You can see all of my Mood Boards here,  ORC spaces here, Home Tours and all of the Room Reveals here.

To get caught up on the rest of the posts in the One Room Challenge, be sure to check them out here!

ORC Week 1: Kitchen + Family Room Refresh before photos here 
ORC Week 2: Kitchen + Family Room design plans + mood boards
ORC Week 4: 5 Lessons I’ve Learned from Having my Kitchen Cabinets Professionally Painted 
ORC Week 5: New Kitchen Lights
ORC Week 6: The Best Neutral Vases for Styling Your Home 
ORC Week 7: Statement Art + How I Styled Our Built-ins
ORC Week 8: Kitchen + Family Room Refresh Reveal

I can’t wait for next week to reveal these two spaces to you [UPDATE: see the Reveal here]! It’s been such a crazy, wild whirlwind getting moved into the house and jumping right into these large projects, but I absolutely love where we’ve landed. Be sure to stop back by next week to see it all!

Have a great weekend, friends!!