44/2025: The Shelves We Live With

Image © Jose 2025

There are some products around us that I doubt were ever truly invented, they simply appeared out of need or accident and then evolved, like shelves. This solution that is all around us probably started when a cave woman wanted things off the floor and, with a couple of stones and a piece of tree bark, created the first shelf. I’m obviously speculating, to say the least. We are surrounded by these solutions, objects so ubiquitous and generic that we just assume they were always there, but someone must have done it first (the wheel, hello!). But shelving is a miracle, and if you try to imagine our lives without it, I guarantee it’s hard.

I love shelving, from the bricks-and-planks do-it-yourself kind to the IKEA shelving (oh, Billy), to the wire ones that look like they’ll never stand the weight of books, and then the floor-standing, wall-hanging, or floor-to-ceiling made-to-measure wooden systems. Shelving, even when empty, is beautiful. Once you put it in place it becomes an empty vessel you get to fill with all that you desire.

I tend to give names to shelving, and we have different types at home. Right beside my desk I have what I call a memory shelf. It’s not very deep, made of sheet metal, and attaches to the white wall almost invisibly, creating a quiet stage for my most personal items that I can’t have on my desk. There are a few books, selected, a mix of what I’m reading now and some I keep going back to. Then there are photos: the one I gave my mom in 1999 of me looking young and happy with “Beijinhos grandes Mãmã” written on it; the one with the three faces my daughter loved doing (still does); a snazzy couple photo of me and my wife on a trip down the Douro; a charcoal sketch of me a good friend offered; some artifacts from my last visit to Mozambique; a couple of masks from carnival in New Orleans with my dear friend  – all of it mingled and arranged by me, where I can touch and look and be touched back, even if only for a millisecond.

Outside in the corridor we have what I call a deflection shelf, a couple of long, narrow wooden shelves with a lip, strategically positioned under, above, and around a bunch of switches and controls: the light switches, thermostat, and cupola window controls, all scattered in a disarray only explained by existing cabling, a lack of order from the installer, and a lack of control from our part. It’s full of things strategically chosen to cover these random wall intrusions. They can slide left and right to uncover them; they’re high enough to do the job but not too high. A few postcard frames above make it look casual, but it’s all about deflecting.

In my wife’s room she has the same shelving as my memory shelf, but in her case it’s what I call the nature shelf, positioned strategically around the windows at her eye level when she’s sitting down working. It’s crowded with plants, clay vases in raw and colorful glazes, different sizes, different species. The money plant loves it there and looks beautiful. She says any plant that’s dying will revive when it’s put on those shelves. I suspect it has more to do with her care than the shelves, but that’s their mission: to create a natural surrounding for her when she sits down to work.

Downstairs we have the core shelf. It’s usually the centerpiece, the shelf all guests see, the one that holds the things we want around when we sit in the living room, things we might not touch for a year, but then one day we do, and we’re glad they’re there. The other day my wife bumped onto old photographs; down came the albums, and she spent time going through them and sharing with family. I was looking through some reference books, identifying signals of what I believe are trends that never go away, and I caressed my precious folders containing the entire collection of @Issue, published by the Corporate Design Foundation. There are boxes with documents we feel we need to keep, other books, the cookbook collection that doesn’t fit in the kitchen shelves, a few collectibles, a few random things I’m not sure how they landed there. Today it’s a hacked Billy made into a corner shelf about six feet tall; my project #16 is to build a made-to-measure floor-to-ceiling wooden shelf that will stand as a testament to my ability to make things with my hands.

There are many more: the collapsible shelves in the basement that my wife bought twenty-five years ago and that still work; the one I built and fixed to the wall in the pantry; the ones the previous owner left behind; the ones in the garage and studio, so many I’ve lost count. Shelves are a reminder that simple storage and display solutions can be humble or intricate, full or half-empty (completely empty shelves are creepy!), dusty and webbed or polished from use. They are a design marvel even when made purely for function, whatever that might mean.

I love shelves, maybe because they are the perfect mix of structure and possibility, a quiet form waiting to hold the shape of our lives.