The best place to spend Memorial Day weekend is probably Montauk, New York. But the second best place is definitely a West Elm—or any furniture store, really—because of the SALES. Don’t be distracted by the clothing stores claiming something lame like 30 percent off full-price. No, no, it’s far too early for a good deal on some shoes…accessories are about the long game. Furniture, however, is about knowing when to pull the trigger. You can shop for years to find the perfect mid-century narrow book shelf hiding in some garage with an owner who doesn’t understand that with the advent of Room & Board, he’s sitting on quite the valuable piece of woodwork. Or (I repeat) you could just go to West Elm on a holiday weekend and cut your losses.

But whether you've bought something new or not, the point here is: Shelves. They're great. Particularly for organizing beauty products. (What's that feature on Into The Gloss called, again? Oh, The Top Shelf, that's right...) Particularly if you're in an apartment that's, shall we say, decidedly not palatial. It took me seven months of living in an apartment the size of a briefcase to realize that my bedside table and requisite underbed storage was not going to hack it. You've got to build up. Hence the West Elm pilgrimage for bookshelves (the narrow Mid-Century one, of course). So now I can stack my books, magazines, and various knickknacks on the higher shelves while reserving the face-level ones for my face. Particularly glorious packaging gets the most real estate. (Hello, Giorgio Armani Crema Nuda, you handsome 5-pound glass devil.)

The best part of all of this, now that I can see all of my things, is that I can stop forgetting I have them. Out of site, out of mind is real. Now the key is to keep it neat (it's never been my forte as I've explained before) and as Instagrammable as possible. Always on the lookout for that perfect # ITGTopShelfie shot, are we not?

—Emily Ferber

Photos by ITG.