One thing that can often happen in a room is that it begins to feel too walled and boring. This is when open shelving can be the saving grace of your home by adding instant pizzazz. Some people out there may cringe at the thought of open shelving and rely on opaque cabinets. But then there are the bold ones who would go all out and flaunt what they have in style.

First things first, don't even think of putting anything not beautiful enough on display if you wish to go ahead with open shelves. This is the right time to put those fancy books on display that you bought judging by their fancy covers! You can make it stand out like a decorative accessory on the shelves. You can arrange tall accent pieces and add picture frames of your memories as well. You can keep a few potted plants too to bring some life and add a punch of nature. You can decorate the shelves with some unique vases, sculptures and crystals too.

Since open shelving lets your eyes go all the way to the wall behind it, it's the perfect way to flaunt a wall treatment. For open shelves, you can choose a paint colour a shade deeper than the room colour or put bricks on it. You can also stick fun wallpaper for a quirky touch. Also, remember to colour-coordinate your books and unite your shelf by grouping shapes, textures and colours to create an instant sense of order.

Lighting is another important element to take note of while doing up your shelves. Remember to illuminate your shelves with proper lighting to bring attention to the things on display. You can add track lighting to the ceiling or mount a picture light above a shelf or even a series of lights over the shelves. You can add small lights to the underside of one shelf to highlight the contents of the shelf below or place tiny up-lights behind a decorative piece to highlight the arrangement.

Open shelving is an easy way to update your living space. We are huge fans of this versatile design and now that you know how to deck up your shelves, why don't you go experiment with it?

Homes are a reflection of their owners and the living room is the first place that guests or anyone coming from outside sees. This is why most of us put in a lot of effort to decorate it to the best of our abilities. But sometimes, we lack the space to run free with our imagination. A lot of designs, furniture, and lighting ideas have to be foregone if the room is ill-equipped to display it and in this case, not utilizing every square inch of space in no less than a crime.

Instead of getting a simple centre table, get one with a built in storage space where you can keep remotes, magazines, newspapers, knick-knacks, etc. leaving the top free for your favourite earthenware. If you have French windows in your home, try to extend the grill and utilize that area as a seating arrangement or another flat surface for things to be kept on.

Another factor worth considering is the height of any painting, photo frame, etc. Don't keep every frame at eye-level. If you hang a couple of frames high up on the wall, you can utilize the rest of it by making a few shelves or racks. Mirrors are another great way to liven up small living spaces. They reflect whatever light is in the room, add an aesthetic effect, it can also hide storage spaces behind them, and even a bed; if you're industrious enough!

Shoes have a tendency to cause clutter especially if you change shoes daily. Keep your shoe-cupboard outside or in a hallway to remove all chances of a muddy mess. The shoe-rack not being there is one bulky piece of furniture you don't need to worry about. Just because your furniture is practical, it's no reason for it to be bulky and ungainly. Invest in a good carpenter and get him to follow clean, neat lines and clear cut patterns.

Finally, learn to let go of unnecessary clutter. As smartly as you try to live or as amazing as your designs can be, if you have more things than you will ever need, finding the right storage space will always be a task.

Unless you're going for the urban industrial-chic look in your apartment, loose wires in plain sight are a big no-no. But with the number of electronics in every household just increasing, how is one supposed to ensure that none of them are ever seen?

These easy hacks will help you do exactly that and they won't even burn a hole in your pocket!

For the cable unit beneath your television set, get an opaque box, preferably wood or cardboard and cut out holes in the sides for wires. Then decorate it to your liking, or make sure it's at least well-polished and voila! The wires are out of sight and you've got a new aesthetic!

You can also buy pretty individual drawers to keep the smaller things like a wireless router. For gadgets like phones and their chargers, you can purchase cloth or felt pouches and hang them from nails or a hooked shelf. These look adorable and keep the electronic essentials in one place. For plugs, adapters, etc., you can use old take-away boxes wrapped in pretty ribbons or use any old tiffin box and label them to keep them from mixing with one another.

For more bulky gadgets like printers, you can modify one drawer or shelf of a storage unit. All you need to do is remove the front part of the drawer and smoothen the edges before you can keep your printer in it. The coverage on the other sides keeps the device protected too.

Moving on to longer wires, one tip that was extremely prevalent in the nineties and is making a comeback now is false ceilings. False ceilings enable you to go in for heavy chandeliers with minimal damage to the real ceiling and they also let you hide the bulbs or tube-lights just beneath their edges so as to bathe the room in light while hiding the source away.

You can also go in for recessed lighting that makes it look like the wall/piece of furniture is lit from within. These are called architectural lights since they're built into the design of the home and require planning in advance.

So there you have it, use these easy and simple hacks for a house that is high tech as well as sleeker than a James Bond den!