8 Books Every Design Lover Should Have
In the age of Instagram, who thumbs through books for design inspiration? If you have to make space on your shelves for a few, here are our picks
“What is the goal? A house that is like the life that goes with it, a house that gives us beauty as we understand it—and beauty of a nobler kind that we may grow to understand,” says pioneer of interior decorating, Elsie de Wolfe. In an era where we design tips and resources are so accessible via the net, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the many voices that offer advice and tips, making reminders such as Elsie de Wolfe’s a classic that rings true.
Books offer a wealth of ideas and resources. If anything, they give us carefully curated content as references on timeless ideas.
If you were to dedicate space on your book shelf for 8 volumes on the subject of decorating for the home, we encourage you to read these:
8 Books Every Design Lover Should Have
8 Books Every Design Lover Should Have
The House in Good Taste by Elsie De Wolfe
Known as the woman who pioneered the interior design practice as it is now known, Elsie de Wolfe coined the interior decorating industry through her talent and business acumen. Originally published in 1914, this book showed its readers how to decorate every room and surface at home from the walls to the floors, doors, windows, hallways and staircases. Think of Elsie de Wolfe as a Turn of the Century Martha Stewart. She also offers tips on cleaning and decluttering, and imparted her preference for values such as harmony and intimacy, over extravagance.
Photo Credit: Simon and Schuster
The Decoration of Houses by Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton was busy remodeling her summer home in Newport, Rhode Island before she won the Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Innocence. Written as a reaction to what she considered the vulgar taste of her nouveau riche neighbors, Architect Ogden Coleman, Jr. guided Wharton with this book. Advocating symmetry and balance over the clutter that defined the decorating style of The Gilded Age, this book is not only a documentation of its period. It also fostered a renaissance in American interior design. Advice from this book remains true and practical to this day.
Photo Credit: BT Batsford
The Style Sourcebook: The Definitive Illustrated Directory of Fabrics, Wallpapers, Paints, Flooring, Tiles by Judith Miller
“We produced The Style Sourcebook to provide something previously unavailable… a compreshensive guide to fabrics, wallpapers, tiles, paints, and floor coverings that located particular materials, motifs, patterns, and colours within historical periods,” says Judith Miller’s introduction to every interior design student’s reference book. This comprehensive and very informative book is an exhaustive reference material for everybody interested in interior design and its history.
Photo Credit: Harry N. Abrams
The Perfectly Imperfect Home by Deborah Needleman
“Style is luxury, and luxury is simply what makes you happy,” reads the front flap of The Perfectly Imperfect Home by Domino Magazine’s founding editor, Deborah Needleman. This book talks about the art of decorating and living well through charming illustrations by Virginia Johnson. This book renounces the notion of picture perfect, stiff and stuffy home interiors. It encourages the homeowner to make every room a backdrop that best serves the lives played in each one of them, “with all [their] joys and imperfections.”
Photo Credit: Potter Style
Home: A Short History of An Idea, by Witold Rybczynski
In this insightful read, author Witold Rybczynski navigates through the home, illustrating the evolution of our current ideas of comfort by looking past decorating styles, and deeper into the history and cultures that have bred the home as we now know it. Learn how architectural necessities have given us some of our comforts via 5 centuries of homes discussed by Rybczynski.
Photo Credit: Penguin Random House
An Affair with a House by Bunny Miller
“Decorating to me is an interesting combination of interesting things in a space. Mix modern with old, mix black with white, but give it personality. It shouldn’t be thematic,” says Bunny Williams in a One Kings Lane interview. This respected decorator was honed by twenty-two years of working with the legendary Parish Hadley design firm. This book is a love letter to her Falls Village, Connecticut home with she has lovingly restored with her husband, antiques dealer, John Roselli. “A good home is a loved home,” Williams is known to have said. See the transformation of her New England home into a well-loved, but nevertheless, never intimidating stunner.
Photo Credit: Stewart Tabori and Chang
May I Come In? by Wendy Goodman
Each of the 75 rooms featured in Wendy Goodman’s May I Come In has a story to tell. In the world Goodman has illustrated through beautiful photos of these arresting rooms each marked with singular character, aristocrats and nobles are the equals of artists and eccentrics. Goodman’s thirty years of design have gained her access to the world’s most character-driven homes and apartments. This book provides readers with her own anecdotes and personal memorabilia, offering a very personal glimpse into the homes birthed by imagination and originality.
Photo Credit: Abrams Books
Wild at Home- Hilton Carter
‘Having plants in your home not only adds life, but changes the airflow throughout. It’s also a key design element when styling your place. For me, it wasn’t about just having greenery, but having the right variety of greenery. I like to see the different textures of foliage all grouped together. You take a fiddle leaf fig and sandwich it between a birds of paradise and a monstera and…. yes!,” says Hilton Carter, author of Wild at Home. This book will show you how to care for your plants, where to situate them, and how to propagate them. It contains a number of tips from growing your own air plants to combining leaf shapes and sizes in an arrangement. It takes you around Hilton’s plant-filled home, offering loads of inspiration on living with plants.
Photo Credit: Simon and Schuster
Banner and Thumb Photographs by Fresstocks and Sincerely Media via Unsplash.
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