What exactly is a corbel, and how can you use them creatively around your home? According to Merriam-Webster, a corbel is an architectural member that projects from within a wall and supports a weight, especially: one that is stepped upward and outward from a vertical surface.
For centuries, architectural decorative embellishments, corbels, and horizontal cornices carved from stone or wood support structures or redirect rainwater water away from a building. Brackets, a word often used to describe corbels, are less decorative but offer similar benefits.
Corbels are a versatile designer go-to for both functional and purely aesthetic home decor projects. With our homes becoming our living and workspace over the last two years, accent pieces like decorative brackets assist in creating an enjoyable and productive work area or retreat by controlling clutter and adding beauty that makes a hybrid schedule much more effective.
DIY Shelving
Build stylish vertical storage out of a floating wood shelf and non-weight bearing carved corbels in distressed white or neutral tones equipped with keyholes for easy hanging. Showcase your college degrees, luscious succulents, and framed photos on your ornate shelf.
Spice jars and bottles of exotic cooking oils can create the very clutter that we're trying to avoid in our kitchens. If you have space above your sink or stove, a DIY corbel shelf can add charm to your kitchen and hold your collection of flavorful seasonings.
Bookends
Distressed Vintage Whitewashed Decorative Wood Bookends
Organize binders, books, and stacks of folders with weighted corbels that double as attractive bookends. These specific corbels do not come with keyholes for hanging and look fabulous when placed on the corner of a well-polished mahogany desk or on a bookcase to hold up and keep items from bending, tearing, or getting lost.
When you're in bed, cozy, and want to spend the last hour or two reading, the last thing you want to do is to have to search for a book. It would help if you had an easily accessible place to keep current reading materials. Incorporating a pair of natural hued corbels on a night table or placed on a nearby bookcase or cube shelf will keep you from having to take late-night journeys through the house.
Lush plants infuse our homes with life-giving oxygen and add natural color to our lives. Instead of placing plants on tabletops or a traditional mantle above a fireplace, make your own mantle by hanging a single, double or triple set of ornate corbels together as a clever antique-style plant perch.
We can stack multiple corbels side-by-side, like our neat plant holder, to create a full mantle for candles, wreaths, or other collectibles. When completed, this piece has an elegant, vintage look that can elevate and transform a space.
Complimentary Accents and Moldings
When guests enter our home, we want to put our best foot forward by creating an experience. Corbels with detailed carvings can complement fixed structures and emphasize furnishings.
Masterfully customize your front door or window panes with a set of carved brackets. Mount the flat side of each corbel to the upper corners of a door threshold or the top inside corners of a window with the corbels facing each other. You can also hang the brackets on either side of a door or window facing out and place a wood shelf on top, as we've done before for our DIY shelving.
Supplement refurbished kitchen cabinets or a breakfast counter with decorative corbels mounted under each end of the cabinetry and counter. Your kitchen will give off the air of a French cafe in spring with these new accented trimmings.
To implement as an accent piece in an entryway, hang one corbel above an end table or place it on its flat edge or carve a slight divot on a scroll to use as a unique votive candle holder.
If you have a framed image that you would like to turn into a focal point, mount a corbel flat on opposite corners of the picture as a molding.
Incorporating wood corbels into your home furnishings will give it a modern vibe with subtle vintage tones. Shop our new line of wood corbels and bookends here.
