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Pre-2020, borrowing home inspiration from an office might have felt peculiar, but now it’s actually the smartest thing you can do to keep up with your space’s growing functionality requirements. In a recently posted photo, Chrissy Teigen showcased her Cravings HQ setup, and it comes complete with a freestanding shelf that may just solve our quarantine-induced qualms with open-floor layouts.

 

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Now that we’re prioritizing interruption-free Zoom calls over free-flowing conversation, a system like Teigen’s is the perfect makeshift boundary when a renovation just isn’t in the cards. Her tall, backless shelving unit acts as both a partition between her kitchen and living spaces and additional storage for pots, pans, and anything else her recipe testing requires. A plus for small spaces: It also doesn’t block sight lines, so the room still feels airy. As it turns out, she’s not the only one with the brilliant idea. According to Pinterest’s trend forecasting report for 2021, searches for “bookshelf room divider” are up 150 percent. 

Two of Anthropologie’s wood bookshelves side by side will do the trick, or, if you only want to manage one delivery, DWR’s system is wide enough to get the job done on its own. A little distance really does make the heart grow fonder.

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