Looking to transform your living space with functional, stylish shelving? Discover how one Chicago couple brought their dream wall to life using customizable Modern Shelving—no antique hunting required. See the before, after, and how they made it their own.
When Debbie and Dave Crowell downsized from a suburban home outside of Chicago to a 2,700-foot condo, they had a vision for exactly how they wanted their space to look. Their new condo sported an open concept design—in the living room was a 10 x 12-foot wall that acted as a focal point of the condo. The couple had a vision of an antique bookshelf with a chair next to it, to give the space a library like feel.
The couple spent a year remodeling their condo. During that time, they scoured local antique shops in search of the perfect antique unit to fill the wall. Despite their efforts, they came up short—the units they found were in poor shape, didn’t match, or didn’t fit the space. They decided it was time to give up and look for a custom shelving unit instead.
After some searching online, Dave stumbled upon Modern Shelving and after browsing through photos, decided it might be a good fit. After speaking with a designer and describing what they wanted, the couple learned there was a shelving unit at a hotel walking distance from their condo. After seeing the shelving unit in person, the Crowells were sold and quickly placed an order.
After some back and forth with the designers, the couple had a sketch they were happy with. When the shelves arrived, the couple had them installed by carpenters that were already doing work on their condo. The shelves were installed based on the original sketch but once it was up on the wall, Debbie wasn’t happy with how it looked.
“We took that original sketch and blew it up and cut it apart and I sat at a table and moved the pieces around on the sketch until it got to the point where I knew that I liked how it looked and I knew that all the different components were exactly where I wanted them,” says Debbie. “That worked out great.”
Dave and Debbie are big fans of Modern Shelving because of how easy it is to customize units. They knew exactly what they wanted and had an idea of what items they wanted to store on their shelves. Modern Shelving helped give life to their vision.
“In the end, finding a vintage unit just didn’t work out for us but this was a really good option,” says Debbie. “We are really happy with how it turned out—it fills up the space on that wall perfectly. When people come here and see it are blown away; they just love it.”
