Book picks similar to
Mad about the House: How to decorate your home with style by Kate Watson-Smyth
interior-design
non-fiction
design
coffee-table-books
Elements of Style: Designing a Home a Life
Erin Gates - 2014
Drawing on her ten years of experience in the interior design industry, Erin combines honest design advice and gorgeous professional photographs and illustrations with personal essays about the lessons she has learned while designing her own home and her own life—the first being: none of our homes or lives is perfect. Like a funny best friend, she reveals the disasters she confronted in her own kitchen renovation, her struggles with anorexia, her epic fight with her husband over a Lucite table, and her secrets for starting a successful blog.Organized by rooms in the house, Elements of Style invites readers into Erin’s own home as well as homes she has designed for clients. Fresh, modern, and colorful, it is brimming glamour and style as well as advice on practical matters from choosing kitchen counter materials to dressing a bed with pillows, picking a sofa, and decorating a nursery without cartoon characters. You’ll also find a charming foreword by Erin’s husband, Andrew, and an extensive Resource and Shopping Guide that provides an indispensable a roadmap for anyone embarking on their first serious home decorating adventure. With Erin’s help, you can finally make your house your home.
Styled: Secrets for Arranging Rooms, from Tabletops to Bookshelves
Emily Henderson - 2015
Even a few little tweaks can transform the way your room feels. At the heart of Styled are Emily Henderson’s ten easy steps to styling any space. From editing out what you don’t love to repurposing what you can’t live without to arranging the most eye-catching vignettes on any surface, you’ll learn how to make your own style magic. With Emily’s insider tips and more than 1,000 unique ideas from 75 envy-inducing rooms, you’ll soon be styling like you were born to do it.
Domino: The Book of Decorating: A Room-by-Room Guide to Creating a Home That Makes You Happy
Deborah Needleman - 2008
The editors take readers room by room, tapping the best ideas from domino magazine and culling insights from their own experiences. With an eye to making design accessible and exciting, this book demystifies the decorating process and provides the tools for making spaces that are personal, functional and fabulous.
Black and White (and a Bit in Between): Timeless Interiors, Dramatic Accents, and Stylish Collections
Celerie Kemble - 2011
And the inspiration is all around us—from nature (a zebra’s stripes, tree trunks rising from drifts of snow) to old Hollywood movies and fashion to black-and-white photography and patterns we encounter in our everyday lives (crossword puzzles and the pages of our favorite novels). In Black and White (and a Bit in Between), acclaimed interior designer Celerie Kemble trades in her signature vivid palette for this iconic aesthetic, highlighting the black and white work of design stars and peers, including Bunny Williams, Thomas O’Brien, Mary McDonald, Victoria Hagan, Mark Hampton, Delphine Krakoff, Brad Ford, Philip Gorrivan, Carrier and Co., and Miles Redd, and welcoming you into more than 100 spaces in every imaginable aesthetic. Woven throughout are her witty observations and expert advice on choosing the best paints and finishes, adding patterns and accessories, building an entire room scheme based on inspiration found in nature, collecting black and white objects, and even choosing the perfect accent colors. With more than 350 gorgeous color photographs, this is a vividly photographed celebration of a timeless scheme, infused with inspirational tips, glimpses into showstopping homes, and proof that a limited palette is anything but.
Homebody: A Guide to Creating Spaces You Never Want to Leave
Joanna Gaines - 2018
This comprehensive guide will help you assess your priorities and your instincts, as well as your likes and dislikes, with practical steps for navigating and embracing your authentic design style.Room by room, Homebody gives you an in-depth look at how these styles are iterated as well as how to blend the genres you’re drawn to in order to create spaces that look and feel distinctly yours.In each chapter are practical takeaways to help problem solve potential pain points in your home. A fold out design guidebook at the back of the book offers a place for you to take notes and sketch out your own design plans as you make your way through the rooms.The insight shared in Homebody will instill in you the confidence to thoughtfully create spaces that you never want to leave.
Down to Earth: Laid-back Interiors for Modern Living
Lauren Liess - 2019
While Habitat walked readers through the decorating process step-by-step, Liess’s latest title takes a step beyond the basics and invites readers to incorporate the main components of her familiar design aesthetic: nature, easy living, and approachability. With evocative photos and substantive design advice, Down to Earth focuses on creating a lifestyle that inspires creativity and functionality. Throughout the book, Liess shows readers how to incorporate six guiding principles in six unique homes: a new farmhouse, a classic American historical home, a lakeside contemporary house, a modern villa, a turn- of-the-century American Foursquare, and a cedar and glass house on a bluff. While each home has a different architectural style, fingerprints of Liess’s down-to-earth style are evident throughout.
Beata Heuman: Every Room Should Sing
Beata Heuman - 2021
In a short amount of time her lively interiors and custom furnishings have made her one of today's most in-demand creatives. Heuman's rooms, colorful spaces enlivened by exuberant elements and poetic inspirations, capture her signature quirkiness and Scandinavian attention to detail while staying rooted in practicality. Lauded for international residential and commercial projects, Heuman has also garnered praise for her growing collection of bespoke fabrics, wallpaper, lighting, homewares, and furniture.This beautifully crafted volume presents Heuman's innovative approach in book form for the very first time. Organized according to design principle, each chapter offers fresh ways to think about decorating a home, finding your voice, making ordinary details extraordinary, and forging a truly unique space. Vibrant photographs showcase standout properties--including several London town houses and a Nantucket vacation residence--that are brought to life by cheerful color palettes, unexpected contrasts, and a d�gag� use of bold patterns and texture. With original drawings and whimsical graphic details, this new tome is a dynamic look into the ethos and work of one of the most exciting names in interior design today.
Design*Sponge at Home
Grace Bonney - 2011
They don't have to be matchy-matchy or rigidly modern. They can just be comfy and unique and reflect who you are, no matter how small your budget or space.That reader is one of the 75,000 unique daily visitors to Design*Sponge, who make it the most popular design site on the web. The site receives 250,000 pageviews every day and has 150,000 RSS subscribers and 280,000 followers on Twitter. Design*Sponge fans have been yearning for the ultimate design manual from their guru, Grace, and she has finally delivered with this definitive guide, which includes:Home tours of 70 real-life interiors featuring artists and designersFifty DIY projects, with detailed instructions for personalizing your spaceStep-by-step tutorials on everything from stripping and painting furniture to hanging wallpaper and doing your own upholsteryFifty Before & After makeovers submitted by readers of Design*Sponge real people with limited time and realistic budgetsEssential tips on modern flower arranging, with 20 arrangementsWith over 700 color photos and illustrations and projects that are customizable, relatable, and affordable, this is the democratizing design book everyone has been waiting for and all for only $35.00!
Cozy Minimalist Home: More Style, Less Stuff
Myquillyn Smith - 2018
Myquillyn Smith's first book, The Nesting Place, teaches us that our homes don't have to be perfect to be beautiful. But how can we apply that lesson to our actual, day-to-day design decisions?Cozy Minimalist Home is the answer to that question. Writing for the hands-on woman who'd rather move her own furniture than hire a designer, Smith helps you think through every room in your house, one purposeful design decision at a time. With people, priorities, and purpose in mind, you can create a warm, inviting, and timeless home that transcends the latest trends and centers around your personal style.You'll have the tools to create a home you're proud of in a way that honors your unique priorities, budget, and taste. And best of all, you can completely transform your home starting with furniture and décor that you already have!In Cozy Minimalist Home, Smith helps you:Recognize your role as the curator of your home who makes smart, style-impacting design choicesKnow what to focus on and what not to worry aboutDiscover the real secret to finding your unique styleFind a sofa you won't hate tomorrowDeconstruct each room and re-create it step by stepCreate a pretty home with more style and less stuffMake your home look the way you've always hoped so you can use it the way you've always dreamed Fall in love with the space you've createdDiscover how creating a cozy minimalist home goes beyond pretty and sets the stage for the true connection, relationship, and rest that you deserve.
Affordable Interior Design: High-End Tips for Any Budget
Betsy Helmuth - 2019
Homeowners and renters of all means dream of having a beautiful home. The media makes it look so easy, but many of us have less to work with and still long to live in style. Affordable Interior Design makes luxury an affordable reality. In this DIY home decorating handbook, Helmuth reveals insider tips and her tried-and-tested methods for choosing colors, creating a gallery wall, how to use accent tables, entry benches, rugs, and more! Helmuth has shared her affordable design advice and step-by-step approaches with millions through live teaching workshops, guest columns, television appearances, and interviews. Now, she has distilled her expertise into this practical guide. The chapters follow her secret design formula and include creating a design budget, mapping out floor plans, selecting a color palette, and accessorizing like a stylist. It’s time to start living in the home of your dreams without maxing out your credit cards. Learn how with Affordable Interior Design!
This is Home: The Art of Simple Living
Natalie Walton - 2018
It's about living simply – finding the essence of what makes you happy at home and creating spaces that reflect your needs and style. Filled with clever ideas and creative spaces it shows that you don't need a huge budget to create a beautiful home. This is Home provides examples and case studies of places with a global and timeless feel that haven't always been renovated in the traditional sense but are true homes.Featuring eight case studies from Australia, the US and Europe, and nearly 200 color photographs, This is Home will inspire you with beautiful, authentic places you want to be – today.Chapters include:The big picture: how to determine your decorating personality, and what's authentic for you.Starting over: let go of the past and create a home for the person you are today, with a focus on decision-making and the art of editing.Living for now: Work out a budget for your time and money using your values as a guide. Where you can spend and save when it comes to creating lasting interiors.The Art of ingenuity: Think creatively, not expensively, when it comes to making changes at home. Going beyond the usual suspects can help you to create a home that's distinctively yours.The poetry of space: Successful spaces are all about addition and subtraction, positive and negative. How to create balance within a room while reflecting your decorating style.The feel of a home: Create interiors that make you feel, and have an emotional connection. How to introduce decorative elements that make for authentic interiors.Surrounding spaces: Key ideas to consider when creating your place in relation to its environment - from the surrounding landscape to local community.Maintaining the focus: Ways to evolve what's important for you and keep focussed on your aesthetic and lifestyle.Happy renewal: How to keep your home fresh without exhausting or expensive overhauls.Rest and revive: How our homes can function as a place to rest our bodies, rejoice in our relationships and restore our values.
Flea Market Chic
Liz Bauwens - 2012
And in traditional decorating schemes, fleamarket chic is a key part of the mix: faded textiles, weathered furniture, mis-matched china, and the occasional flamboyant lamp or work of art are all part of the charm. Of course, Fleamarket Chic is about saving you money, along with recycling, upcycling, and repurposing. But it’s also about a sense of history and place, about individuality, and creating a home that reflects your life and personality. Every piece in a Fleamarket Chic interior has a story: the colorful pitcher you found at a garage sale, the vintage telephone you reclaimed when a favorite aunt finally bought a modern handset, the little chair you found in a county junk store, or the old trash cans that have been converted into fashionable zinc planters. In Fleamarket Chic, we’ll show you how to spot the clever find in a pile of junk, where to look and how to negotiate, how to smarten up (and when not to smarten up) second-hand items, and how to re-discover and re-use things you or your family already have.
Happy Home: Everyday Magic for a Colorful Life
Charlotte Hedeman Guéniau - 2013
Happy Home brims with useful ideas for transforming a ho-hum home with relaxed contemporary style featuring bright colors, cheerful patterns, and varying textures and scale inspired by designer Charlotte Hedeman Gueniau and her home furnishings company Rice, which are well-known among design fans for innovative home furnishings and houseware collections featuring ethically sourced and produced products. The book shows how the basics of everyday life can be enlivened by bringing color and a sense of fun to daily living, whether by using brightly colored accessories or by introducing fabrics with patterns, textures, and hints of humor throughout the home. Included are practical suggestions that add informal charm to any room, as well as do-it-yourself projects ranging from brightly colored throws and cushions, storage ideas to hide clutter, hand-painted furniture, and decorative motifs for walls and other surfaces.
Pottery Barn Living Rooms
Bonnie Schwartz - 2003
Drawing on the expertise of America's leading home furnishings brand, this essential guide addresses every aspect of creating comfortable, casual living spaces with ease and style. With more than 250 original color photographs, Pottery Barn Living Rooms is the ultimate sourcebook for decorating the heart of your home.Key Features:* More than 250 never-before-seen photographs illustrate everything you need to know, from choosing colors to arranging furniture* Hundreds of practical decorating ideas and quick styling tips help you create simple, beautiful effects throughout your home* Walk-through room tours of real-life living spaces include color palettes, design plans, and quick-reference guides to materials
New Cottage Home
Jim Tolpin - 1998
Jim Tolpin celebrates the diversity and charm of 30 sample cottages, from a Pacific Northwest cottage modeled after a French hunting lodge to a "salvage yard vernacular cottage" built with junkyard materials.Each featured home reflects individual personality, priorities, and lifestyle. Whether by the water, on a mountain, or in a forest, field, or town, these homes emphasize quality of place over quantity of space.