How to Decorate a Corner Shelf – 10 Unique Ideas

10 unique and creative ideas to decorate a corner shelf in your bedroom or living room. Written by : Andre A & Roomdsign.com Editors | Last Updated : November 17th, 2023

Corner is one part of the home that is often forgotten when homeowners decorate their homes. In fact, decorating this small part of your home can bring a big impact on the entire room decoration.

There are a lot of different ways to decorate an empty corner, and one of the most popular way is by using a corner shelf.

Using a corner shelf can bring a lot of benefits. Not only it can make a boring corner looks much more interesting, it also can be used to store and organize your items or display some decoration accessories.

Furthermore, you can easily adjust the decoration style of your corner shelf to create the effects that you want. Here in this article, we will give you 10 creative ideas to decorate a corner shelf that we hope can bring you some fresh ideas and inspiration to make a beautiful corner inside your home. And here they are :

1. Create a Corner Bookshelves

Corner bookshelves ideas
Corner bookshelves

For any bibliophile, lack of storage for their books collection is the common problem that they are facing every single day. If you are facing the similar problem, than you can overcome this by creating a corner bookshelves, especially when there is a vacant corner in your room.

To get maximum results, you can choose a tiered corner shelves with a lot of storage capacity. You can organize you books based on different categories on each tier of shelf.

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Convenience Concepts Oxford 5 Tier White Corner Bookcase

2. Vintage Style Corner Shelf

vintage style corner shelf decor
Vintage style corner shelf decoration

Vintage style never gets old – as it’s already is. If you are the one that loves this decoration style, than you can turn your boring corner to have a beautiful vintage looks.

This can achieved by using a vintage style corner shelf, and than put some oldies decor items there to add more vintage vibe.

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Monarch Specialties 72″ Tall Accent Corner Shelves – Dark Taupe

3. Be a Source of Light

Corner shelf with lamp
Corner shelf with lamp

Most corner is the darkest area of the entire room, this is due to lack of lighting that pointing to it. You can turn this and make your corner to be a source of light for the entire room by put a table lamp in your corner shelf.

This trick not only will make your corner looks more attractive, but also can produce a layered lighting that will make the entire room ambiance feels more stylish and romantic.

If you are using a tiered shelf in your corner, you can put the lamp at the top shelf for the best results. Or, you can using a corner shelf with built it lighting such as the ones that we used at the example above.

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Simple Designs Home White Storage Shelf with Linen Shade Floor Lamp

4. Green Corner Shelf

Green corner ideas for living room and bedroom
Green corner ideas

A lot of different studies has shown that adding some greenery can help make any room feels much more relaxing and make people feels comfortable when they stay there for hours. If you think your room lacks of some nature elements, than a corner shelf can be a great place for them.

Of course, putting one small planter won’t be enough, so you need to use some different planter those to get maximum results. You can combine different kind of plants or flowers with different vases to make those corner feels much more alive and natural.

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Ballucci White Rounded Floating Corner Shelf

5. Farmhouse Style Corner Shelf

Farmhouse style corner shelf
Farmhouse style corner

If you are using a farmhouse style decor for your home, than you should decorate your corner shelf using the same style to make it looks flawless and blend with the entire room decoration. Of course, the easiest way to get the farmhouse looks is by using a farmhouse style corner shelf such as the one that we used on the example above. This way, your corner will have a farmhouse looks no matter what items you put on that shelf.

Other ways that you can do when you already had another style of corner shelf is by put some farmhouse accessories on it.

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Mkono 3 Tier Jute Rope Wooden Hanging Corner Shelf – Dark Brown

6. Retro Rustic Style Corner Shelves

Rustic corner shelf
Rustic corner shelf

Rustic retro decor style always have a die hard fans. And if you are one of them, than surely you want to decorate your empty corner with this style. To create a rustic look, you can choose any shelf that using any old aged wood or metal elements, or combinations of both.

To add more retro feels, put any oldies items and accessories on it. But to avoid those shelf looks boring, you can add some plant with old style vases to help balanced it out.

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MBQQ Industrial Rustic Corner Pipe Shelves with Real Wood

7. Coastal Style Corner

Decorate corner shelf in coastal style
Coastal style corner shelf

Coastal or beach-style decor getting more and more popular nowadays, and it’s not only used in a beach house, but lot of houses in urban area using this decor style as it can make the room feels more fresh, fun and vibrant.

Today, there is a lot of coastal style furniture that you can choose to add some ocean breeze into your home, including a coastal style shelf, like the one that we used on the image above.

Using those kind of shelf alone can turn a monotonous corner looks much more attractive. And than you can finish this off by placing some coastal style accessories to add more ocean feels into your spaces.

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BarnwoodUSA Rustic Coastal Farmhouse Blanket Ladder Shelf

8. Glamorous Gold Corner Shelf

Glam gold corner shelf ideas
Glam gold corner shelf

Years ago, gold element only used on a classic luxurious style interior. But now, you can use it on any other interior style, from contemporary to minimalist ones. For you who want to add some glam touch to your space, than you can achieve that by using a gold corner shelf.

The one that we used in this example is a simple yet stylish shelf with gold finish frame that looks gorgeous to occupy any empty corner. With this kind of shelf, you can put whatever you want on that shelf and it will still looks stunning and beautiful.

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Nathan James 5 Tier Shelf Ladder Bookcase with Gold Brass Metal Frame

9. Minimalist Zig-zag Corner Shelf

minimalist creative zig-zag shelf
Minimalist creative shelf

As we already said before, when decorating a corner using shelf, choosing the right shelf can bring 80% impact, while choosing what to put on it only affects 20% of the final outcome. That means, when you are choosing a great corner shelves, your next job on decorating it will much more easier.

As you can see in this example, where we choose a creative and unique zig-zag style corner shelves that looks stylish and beautiful. Here we don’t need to add some fancy decor accessories or shiny objects, yet the corner shelf still looks gorgeous and can help lift up the entire room decor.

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Greenco 5 Tier White Wall Mount Decorative Corner Shelves

10. Elegant Style Corner Shelf

Elegant stylish wooden corner shelf
Elegant wooden corner shelf

Corner area is often underestimated, to make it stand out you should add something unique and extraordinary. Like in this example where we add an unique stylish corner shelf with gray wood and metal combinations.

Using this kind of shelf will attract people’s attention to your corner, than you can use it to show off some of your picture or collectibles on it.

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Under.Stated Wooden Gray Rustic Modern Wall Mounted Corner Shelf with Four Arms

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