Open Shelves - Beautiful But Practical?

A lot of homeowners love doing this.

Simple horizontal open shelves, built-in with warm LED lights.

Beautiful, but there’s a (very obvious) catch.

Watch our tiktok channel if you lazy to read.

These two homeowners love to travel.

So they wanted to use this to display travel souvenirs, slowly stacking them up as they travelled more.

When we did the youtube home tour for this house, it was very clear that with the soft warm LED lights, at night, the whole living room looks damn vibe-y.

But here’s the catch: dust.

Because the shelf is horizontal and exposed, it will 100% collect dust.

That’s the trade‑off.

You have to keep cleaning it.

This might sound obvious, but we have seen countless of homeowners ignore this for aesthetic purposes.

Not wrong, as long as you are aware of the key principle when crafting your design: The more horizontal platforms/ledge you have, the more maintenance you need.

The homeowners themselves said it best: “Sometimes you want 漂亮的东西 (pretty things), sometimes need to give in a little bit.”

TLDR

Open shelves are pretty, but remember that they are a double-edged sword.

Gorgeous to look at, but they demand maintenance and collect dust like nobody’s business.

If you are super practical, minimise such horizontal exposed surfaces.

If you are looking to shortlist reliable IDs/contractors for your reno, feel free to enquire here, or check out our blog for other important tips!!