A Look At My Lil Shelfie

I was never really an open-space concept kind of person. Neither was I an open-shelving kind of gal. But what did I know, right?

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I can't believe it's been over a year since Shah and I moved to Johor; I grew up thinking I would never settle in any other state other than Selangor (home sweet home!) or Kuala Lumpur, yet I'm now living almost five hours' drive away. Not being able to see my family is the one sucky thing about living here but honestly, other than that, I find myself surprisingly being content living in the small town here with Shah and our furbabies.

Another juvenile thought I had growing up as an urban kid? That it simply would not be fun living in a place where the nearest shopping mall is not 15 minutes away.
Ah, the naivety.

Perhaps the contentment comes from making our house feels truly like home to us. I remember worrying (OK, stressing, more like) about decorating this house, but more than anything I felt excitement at the prospect of trying out new decor concepts. I mean, I. LOVE. Decor. Whether I'm good at it, is moot. Looking at living spaces on Pinterest is my jam, peeps. The thing is though, I feel like I like so many things when it comes to decor that it became a challenge to filter which decor concepts to do. But really, I looked forward to experimenting more than anything.

One of those new decor concepts I was excited to try out? All thanks to the willingness of people to share a peek of their homes on social media, that concept was open shelves decor.

Yep, introducing my wee lil shelfie here! Honestly, I wanted a wider open-shelves rack for my foray into the open-shelving world — double the width of this black rack — but thanks to my giant mirror there at the side, I was only able to go for this narrow black one, which was a reasonable purchase from Ikea.

Even so, I think this was a smart decision as I needed to see how I could live with open shelves. As much as I wish I were a Monica (from Friends, I mean), I'm just absolutely not — I do not enjoy cleaning. As excited as I was about open shelving, I was also hesitant because of the inevitable accumulation of dust. It must be noted that I was a total vacuum person — I never use to dust! — but I am now of the opinion that whoever came up with the idea of dusting made a priceless discovery.

Also, microfibre duster is essential, yall. Magical, the way they stuck to the microfibers, and the dusts that fall off to the floor can just be vacuumed away anyway!

I'm definitely a proponent of open shelving now. I don't think I'm at all good at styling the shelves but I'm learning along the way. Since I took these photos a few months ago, my racked has changed looks too many times to count, but this is exactly why I love open shelves so much: getting to "style" them every so often just for the fun of it.

I never used to switch around the locations of items and trinkets around my old house but I do it every so often now, taking my own sweet time deciding what goes on those open shelves and what does not for that week, and it's surprisingly somewhat creatively fulfilling. And I'm doing it all for my own pleasure too, what with the pandemic and no-guests-allowed, so they're a 100% for my own eyes (plus Shah could not care less where I place the candlesticks and vases and whatnots, which is something I wouldn't have any other way!).