Overly curated shelves are the bane of my existence. I hate it when a shelf only has one or two items. These extremely edited shelves feel like a product of the last 10 years or so, where curated minimalism is everything, and all clutter is to be eliminated, rather than embracing personality or authenticity.
Looking back at Elizabeth Taylor's living room storage from the 1950s, we see that it doesn't have to be this way. An archival image of the actress and her second husband, Michael Wilding, in their London home in 1952 features a set of casually stuffed shelves. The top shelves feature rows of books, carelessly lined up, some even falling. Her bottom shelves feature three ceramic vases.
