Simple pleasures: curated shelves

It seems that not everyone spends ages curating their shelves, which seems strange to us! Isn't it just a given that the things around your house need to be arranged into complimentary groups, either by theme and/or colour? 

I recently realised that maybe other people don't do this, when my daughter and friends were sitting on our sofa watching TV and I was coming in and out of the room with various different coloured pots, putting them on the mantelpiece, standing back and surveying them, then swapping and arranging. "What are you doing?' asked her friend. 'Arranging things on the mantelpiece,' said I, and was met with a confused look, 'Why', she replied, 'cos she's weird', replied my daughter!! Hopefully she'll also be weird one day too, because I think arranging things on shelves is one of life's greatest pleasures.

Comments

[lee randall]

Darlings, I do this all the time, always updating and trying to perfect, and when I spoke to Nicky Haslam about it (he is also guilty of the habit) he told me David Hicks (think) christened these assemblages "tablescapes", which i think is a pretty definitive phrase, regardless of where they reside! x

[jane]

ooo love that term, will be using it from now on at every opportunity. J x

[amanda]

Tablescapes! I totally love it! It must be fine to do if there is an official word for it, 'specially if it's come from Mr Haslam...who I suspect should be an honorary Women's Room reader...I guess my arranged piles of fruit/veg could be called organic tablescapes? Axx

[tanya]

How about a shelfarama? For me this is a natural obsession and also a guilty pleasure, probably brought on by the fact that i'm a windowdresser by trade. Small groupings as they are known in the industry!

[Postcardsfrombattersea.blogspot.com]

yes yes yes! I totally get this, it is one of my favourite pastimes! I will try and blog my version this weekend x

[jane]

So glad I'm not the only one with this obsession, loving this time of year, as Christmas provides so many opportunities for shelf curating/tablescapes/small groupings/shelfarama's!