help me fill my huge IKEA EXPEDIT storage/ shelf unit with style!

[noonar]

now, most people need a unit like this for book shelf/ storage, but we are using it as a room divider to create a lobby area in our massive sqaure hallway.

we now have 25 huge boxy spaces to fill! dh just built some lovley floating book shelves too, so we dont have loads of spare books to put on the expedit unit.

have played around a bit with it... put a few cermic bits on display, baskets along the bottom for shoes, box files for papers..... but there's so much space to fill.

am trying to make it a bit random, as dont want it to seem too contrived eg top shelf books, next shelf cermaics.... any ideas of what to fill it with so it doesnt look too try- hard?

am sure we will grow into it, iyswim, but everything i do seems to look contrived (except the books) and it took 20 paper backs to fill one of the 25 boxes!!

any ideas?

Ours does house our fiction, so books account for about half/two thirds. There's an ipod dock in one square. A family photo in another. My sewing box sits in one. The fleecy blankets we have for tv watching are shoved in another. Any good?

Do you have pretty wellies? Might look good.

Some decorative boxes storing gloves, hats, scarves etc

thansk folks. dh said photos won't work, as you will see the back of the photo frame as you walk in through the front door. as its a room divider, whatever is there has to work when viewed from front and back...

i think we could probably accommodate a few more baskets...

i think i will be raiding the car boot sales for more lovely books, esp as a newly- at home- SAHM with dc at school so have time to read!

dont want my size 8 wellies on display, but maybe if they were more cath kidston-esqu that could work!

These tubs fit on expedit and look quite cute.

Your DH has no imagination. Look!

Oh god- send it to me- I'll fill it with crap in 25 seconds........

There is a Kelly Hoppen book called Close Up where she teaches the way to display stuff. Its all about balance (apparently).

Expensive book but may be worth a flick through if you can find it a library/book store.

I think its trial and error and will take a few weeks of putttng stuff on, moving it, adding, subtracting etc.

Good luck!

They must have been thick paperbacks, I've got 30ish of them to a box if you count front and back including Dickens and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Filling an expedit is no mean feat!

I've got 3 of them, two 5x5's and one 4x2 (58 boxes) but mine self filled with books, the stereo, craft stuff, old bubble wrap awaiting reuse, the cat's bed and so on. I think if I were using them as a room divider I'd go for coloured storage baskets, the kind that look nice from either side. That way people can't see they're empty and you just put them there to fill space but I wouldn't have to throw them away as I filled the boxes because they would be even more useful then, not less.

IKEA have some double sided photo frames which would work well. The stand is at the bottom so neither side is the back iyswim.

The children's soft toys and dolls work well too, place a couple of the pretty but not played with ones sitting back to back in a box.