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    Home Decor

    Booked up? Add a a personal touch to your home with well-styled bookshelves

    Barbara Kuntz
    Barbara Kuntz
    Feb 21, 2015 | 12:45 pm

    Let's get personal ... about bookshelves.

    "Bookshelves need to be personal," award-winning interior designer Chandos Dodson Epley of Chandos Interiors says. "You don't want your home to look like a hotel. Have books you love, family photographs or art thrown in the mix."

    Epley says while she does have people approach her for her expertise in styling bookshelves, typically it's part of accessories for a house as a whole. But those who do come forth face the same challenges as most clients do.

    Epley shares her top five tips for making your bookshelves look organized — and even beautiful.

    Shelf Placement
    Adjust shelves to varied heights.

    "This helps make the built-in look more unique and gives you more options on the accessories you can place on the shelves," she says.

    Groupings
    Use a group or collection of accessories to help unify the shelves.

    "I have used everything from French campaign maps to porcupine quill boxes in shelves," Epley says. "Just simple silver picture frames and books do the trick quite nicely."

    Texture
    "A wallpaper such as grass cloth or jute added to the back of bookshelves warm them up and can add a pop of color if needed," she says. "Ceramics and porcelain can also help a room that has a lot of glass and metal in it."

    Variety
    Be sure to vary the placement and size of objects.

    "When styling with books be sure to stack vertically and horizontally," Epley says. "There are no rules on how books are to be placed. Try varied sizes of picture frames and porcelains. A bookshelf can look and feel too commercial if everything is too similar."

    Symmetry and Balance
    "Try to balance the shelves from left to right with spacing and objects," Epley says. "The items used don’t have to be a matching pair, but using a similar scale will help anchor the shelves for a finished look."

    As for home libraries, Epley says she approaches these more extensive collections with the same five principles in mind. "Home libraries can still be beautiful while being functional if books need to be organized in a way so that they can be found," she says. "Books can be curated just like objects."

    Take a look through the slideshow above for some of Epley's projects in styling bookshelves following her five tips.

    Epley began her 15-year career after graduating from the University of Texas with a bachelor's degree in interior design. She won "Best Kitchen" honors from Southern Living magazine last year, was selected by House Beautiful magazine as one of the “Next Wave” of Interior Designers in 2010 and was recognized as a "Star on the Rise" by the Decorative Center Houston in 2010. She has design boutiques in Houston and Dallas.

    A variety of curated objects keeps the bookshelves interesting as with this hall bookshelf by Chandos Interiors.

    6554 Chandos Interiors bookshelves February 2015
      
    Photo courtesy of Chandos Interiors
    A variety of curated objects keeps the bookshelves interesting as with this hall bookshelf by Chandos Interiors.
    unspecified
    news/home-design

    Branching Out

    Hidden gem Houston store offers timeless antiques at affordable prices

    Emily Cotton
    Feb 28, 2025 | 12:11 pm
    Living Century Home store
    Photo by Emily Cotton
    Hand-selected imports fill this Spring Valley showroom.

    Not far off the beaten path, in Houston’s Spring Valley neighborhood, exists an unassuming industrial building with a door marked only by the giant, seemingly anachronistic, olive oil jar that houses an olive tree. Behind this door lies Living Century Home, a store that sells imported decorative goods from Greece, Turkey, Indonesia, and India — all 100-years-old or more.

    Founded in 2023, this fledgling company has already gained “cult status” among designers and architects from all over the Southeast. Even more impressive is that their marketing strategy is merely old-fashioned word-of-mouth. This appointment-only showroom sees two visitors a day on average, which makes sense when each appointment lasts between two and three hours. These time blocks may seem extreme, but once immersed in Living Century’s santal-scented sea of olive jars, small pots, and wooden pieces, it becomes clear how easily a person could lose all sense of time while searching for that perfect piece.


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    Umit Aktura founded Living Century Home for pragmatic reasons — he and wife Melis found it frustrating to source authentic antique olive jars for their own home. That previous lack of authentic inventory stateside is how Aktura explains their rapid success, even opening a secondary location near the Dallas Design District last year.

    “I’m not someone who can sit behind a computer monitor all day,” Aktura tells CultureMap. The former software engineer and University of Houston alumnus decided to take the leap into home decor importing once the family had successfully sourced items for themselves.

    “We try to source the best products, we have Round Top quality and better,” says Aktura. “We sometimes take two months overseas sourcing the very best.”

    Living Century Home is aware that many garden centers and big box stores offer mass-produced replicas of the types of items in their inventory, but that’s not an issue for them. “That’s not our client,” he explains.

    While many replicas exist of the large, white, olive jars from Greece, the highly textural and patinated jars from other countries are impossible to replicate. The three most popular styles come from Turkey and are known for their distinctive regional traits. These Turkish jars are Avanos, Aydin, and Odemis.

    To assist clients with completing the Living Century look, the company also sells regionally appropriate “Shady Lady,” aka “Black Olive” trees in 6-9’ heights — very full service indeed.

    Every item in inventory is subject to an authentication process and is tagged with color codes and numbered seals — they have provenance. “Everything we have I’ve put my own hands on and personally selected,” Aktura tells CultureMap.

    Olive jars of all sizes, small jugs, bread boards, accent tables and stools carved from a single piece of wood, the list of items is impressive. Beautifully carved cabinets from India sit alongside a small selection of dining tables. The store also stocks rare, lime-washed paper mache “bowls” (just don’t add water!).

    “The best pieces are only here because we love them,” says Aktura. “That’s why we take so much time sourcing.”

    Most items from Living Century Home are purchased for private collections, though recently their antiques can be seen at Houston Greek restaurant Niko Niko’s, the new Yellow Rose by Kendra Scott store in the Heights, and what will be a very public-facing art installation in a soon-to-be-announced restaurant.

    Do not be misled by their appointment-only approach to doing business. With pricing between $45-$2,000, their antiques are very accessible, but hagglers beware: “This isn’t a Round Top festival style ‘buy two, get 50-percent off’ sort of place,” says Aktura with a laugh. “Everything here is special.” Duly noted.


    Living Century Home store
      

    Photo by Emily Cotton

    Hand-selected imports fill this Spring Valley showroom.

    home designliving century homeshopping
    news/home-design
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