In American Houses Short on Square Footage, the Wall Is the New Floor

Where a house lacks room to spread out, the case is being made for building up instead. A shelf mounted flush to the wall, with no legs or brackets in view, holds a display the way a tabletop would, without giving up an inch of floor. The appeal shows up most in the parts of the American home where space has always been tightest: a slim hallway, a reading nook, a stair landing too narrow for furniture. What used to sit unused becomes a place to keep books, framed photographs, or a favorite piece of pottery in view. It is a small fix, but in a house where every square foot is accounted for, it changes how a room reads.

With reporting from Architectural Digest.