Glass Shelving Units Living Room

Caroline Patterson Interior Design Expert

Caroline is a young, New York-based interior designer and home decor writer, obsessed with textiles and designer furniture. Backed with rigorous training from a prestigious design school, as well as a profound understanding of material quality and fabric care, she offers spot-on advice on how to furnish your place with reliable, functional, and aesthetically pleasing pieces.

Updated 09/04/2021

If you have plenty of items to display but prefer to do so in a medium that's a little more modern, then you probably really love to see glass and steel around your living room. So our collection of glass shelving units for living rooms will fit right in with your decorative concept, allowing you to display whatever you want and not throw off your contemporary mystique. See collection for more.

Buying Guide

Are glass shelving units a good choice for a modern living room?

Glass shelving units in living rooms are a popular choice for enhancing your modern decor. The bright reflective surface can make a small space seem larger, and the sleek, shiny finish coordinates well with a clean, modern aesthetic. Consider choosing a metal or mahogany wood frame with safe, tempered glass shelves for a complementary look. Some units come with shelves with doors so you can hide away items you don’t want on display.

How much weight can glass shelving units hold?

The amount of weight the glass shelving units in your living room can hold varies based on factors like height, width, glass thickness, and the overall size of the unit. While the package for your shelving unit might list an overall weight limit for the unit, it can be challenging to determine the weight capacity of each glass shelf.

Luckily, there are glass load calculators online to help you get a more precise number. To use the calculators, you’ll need a bit of information about your shelves, such as whether they are standard (annealed) glass or tempered glass, the shelf dimensions, the glass thickness, and the span between supports.

How wide can glass shelving units be?

You might easily wonder if the glass shelving units (living room or otherwise) can physically be that wide. After all, glass is brittle—and a longer shelf will be more fragile than a shorter one.

You’ve got a good point. Typically, manufacturers will not distribute glass shelves without additional support that are more than about 2-3 feet long.

However, there’s an easy workaround: If you want a full wall of open or floating glass shelving, simply purchase two shelving units and place them right next to each other. You’ll get the look you want, and it’ll be as stable as you need them to be.