Rack ‘em, Stack ‘em, Hang ‘em

If all your home is a stage, well front and centre are the displays on open shelves.

And chances are these serried rows are taking up a lot more real-estate on the wall that any painting — and in three dimensions are more intrusive than artwork, and more demanding — with a step back of as much as half a metre.

It’s a very deliberate act to put something out on a shelf. Some lovely things can be compromised simply because they are thrown away in the wrong setting, strangled by clutter or overwhelmed by a black coffin of 1990s beauty-board.