How to Decorate Farmhouse Shelves with Houseplants
Add a fresh, new look to a space and decorate farmhouse shelves with easy care house plants.
One of my favorite DIY projects is the farmhouse shelves we put in the Dining Room.
They were so quick and easy and add style and personality into the space.
It’s a place I decorate seasonally, and it was time to freshen up the Dining Room for Spring!
This time, I decided to use houseplants as the main feature for these Spring Farmhouse Shelves.
Tips for Decorating Shelves with Houseplants
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links for your shopping convenience. Shopping with affiliate links is no extra cost to you, as is a way of providing income for this blog.
Decorate farmhouse shelves with houseplants by choosing houseplants suitable for the lighting in the room.
I’m a relatively new houseplant mom, but I’ve been having fun trying out new plants, and am thrilled that *most* of them have survived my newbie care. I would say these are great houseplants for beginners! Perhaps, even, they are the easiest houseplants to keep alive!;)
This space gets very little direct sunlight, but it is near a big bank of windows. So, as I shop for live houseplants, I look for easy care houseplants that don’t need sun.
Here are a few of my favorite low light houseplants:
- Snake plant – I’ve read that this is one of the easiest houseplants to take care of. I totally agree! I seldom water mine – making sure it’s really dry before watering. It’s happy as a clam.
- Prayer plant – This is brand new to me, but I just love it’s beautiful striped leaves. I’ve read that the prayer plant does NOT like direct sunlight, so as the days turn brighter and sunnier, I may need to move it to a shadier spot.
- Coffee Plant – I’ve had a bit of trouble with brown leaves on this one, but once I removed them, lots of new growth began. It’s been happy in various low light locations around our home.
- Money Tree – This is probably my favorite larger plant of all. I water it once a week and it just continues to get new growth on it. I did panic when it started shedding leaves in the Fall, but apparently that’s normal!
(The money tree is the large plant in the DIY planter stand beside the buffet.)
Alternate heights of plants on the shelves.
I started this arrangement with the tallest plants flanking the edges of the top shelves. The smaller prayer plant works well on the lower shelf.
It’s ok to mix faux plants with real houseplants
Before I was brave enough to try live houseplants, I strictly used only faux greenery for decor. I don’t have to worry about them ever dying!
Filling in the shelves with some faux plants and flowers helped fill out the space nicely.
Group arrangements in groupings of three – mixing in colors and textures.
I like to think of the rule of 3s when I’m arranging decor. Snuggling up three items of varying height makes a lovely look.
Add art to the shelf arrangements for additional color and interest.
I wanted some art on the second shelf, so I printed some Impressionistic art (from free public domain) on my home printer. Since I didn’t have a frame that fit it (and I didn’t want to take time to make a simple DIY picture frame), this time I simply stuck it to the wall with scotch tape!
If you would like to add this beautiful impressionistic art to your decor, too, it’s available for you free in my Printables Library. The free printables library is filled with printable art, cards, organization labels, and checklists.
The entire collection is available to my VIP newsletter subscribers. If you aren’t one yet, no problem!
Just click here to become a VIP newsletter subscriber for instant access to the secret passcode (or click the button below).
I recommend printing off wall art on cardstock with the following supplies (affiliate links)
- Home printer – Ours is the Canon TS5020
- White Cardstock (which is thicker than normal printer paper)
If you’d rather, you can have it printed on cardstock through your favorite print shop.
Stand back and look at the overall arrangement often
Shelf styling is really personal preference. Although there are some easy steps to help you get started, there’s really no right or wrong way.
Arrange and shuffle things around until the overall look and feel is what you like.
Houseplant containers can be a big part of your decor.
Some of my houseplants have come in just cheap little plastic containers. I’ve found it fun to search for pretty plant containers that will also become part of my decor.
Although mine are all rather neutral, you could get bold colors to pop into your decor scheme if you’d rather.
SHOP EASY CARE HOUSEPLANTS ONLINE FROM AMAZON:
For more posts on bookshelf styling, you may want to check these out:
- How to Style a Farmhouse Bookcase in 3 Easy Steps
- Ideas for Decorating Bookshelves with 3 Key Items (you probably already have!)
- Adding Moulding to Ikea Billy Bookcase
For more fresh ideas for your home:
Be sure to join the VIP newsletter list! As a valued VIP member, you will get exclusive access to the entire library of free printables – including wall art, cards, organization lists, menu planning set, and more.
Click here or the button below to join today.
And if you want to see more real life behind the scenes action, be sure to come join me on my @harbourbreeze Instagram Channel!
Rita, This post is just packed with helpful tips…thank you! I appreciate the Amazon link for faux plants because my home is positioned where I don’t get ideal lighting for growing nor do I have places to put many houseplants. I like how you arranged your shelves. About the frameless print, if you tape it onto a darker colored paper and leave an inch or so around the edges of the print then from a distance it will look like a frame. I would show you mine but not sure how to get a photo on here. Anyway, keep the tips coming. I always enjoy your posts. Hope you are all healed up. Bless you, Sharon in NJ