From Scandi minimalism to organised chaos, a flip through these pages will leave you ready to shake things up with your interior decorations
Words Sabrina Nunez
Urban Pioneer
With housing in high demand, anything and everything can be converted into a residential space, which is where Sara Emslie’s book comes into play. Exploring exterior and interior renovations and discovering how to define key elements of an urban space, Emslie brings together the old with the new in a historical context that shows how much she understands about transforming a space. Exposed brick and worn wooden panels are some of the robust features of the book, while polished light fixtures and table tops offer balance.
£19.99, rockettstgeorge.co.uk
Modern Vintage Style
Broken up into two parts, Emily Chalmers brings together examples of textiles, lighting and furniture before showing you how to incorporate vintage pieces into your interior space while simultaneously ensuring they also serve a purpose. Practicality reigns supreme in this book as Chalmers’ approach to selecting and styling interiors is never overdone. Her understanding of how shapes, colours and spaces can transform a vintage piece and modernize it takes form in advice that’s easy to understand and apply. The scrapbook design of the pages further emphasizes Chalmers’ desire to communicate the importance of surrounding yourself with things you love.
£19.99, amazon.co.uk
A Beautiful Mess
Claire Bingham humanises an interior space by sharing the stories that make up the eclectic and truly lived-in homes she visits. The book looks at homes around the world and has text printed in both English and German, making it even more accessible. Bingham brings together everything: from modern to industrial, vintage to IKEA classics, and bold colours with muted pastels and neutrals. The images are beautiful and the interiors are anything but minimalistic, choosing organized clutter over clean lines.
£29.95, amazon.co.uk
The Scandinavian Home
Crafted around the idea of embracing light to enlarge and enliven an interior space, the minimalist appearance of Scandi interiors is having a massive moment. Blogger Niki Brantmark displays interiors that fit the trend, but throw an individual spin with dark walls, mismatched furniture and shelves brimming with books. Brantmark also showcases accessibility by showing that Scandi style isn’t limited to central city flats; farmhouses, mountain cabins and beach houses can also be the perfect backdrops for the clean lines and warm wooden textures essential to this design craze.
£19.99, amazon.co.uk
Creative Living Country
Leave the busy city streets behind and join Chloe Grimshaw as she takes you on a journey to the spacious British countryside. Half of the book focuses on dreamy interiors that take advantage of the larger rooms offered by the country, but the other half recounts stories of hopeful career moves made by artists, architects, makers and designers. Grimshaw shows how beneficial a move from city to country can be for an artistic and creative mind, both financially and intrinsically. The book explores 25 houses across the UK and celebrates how innovatively these pioneers have worked the countryside to their advantage, proving that a London address isn’t the only aspect of success.
£19.95, thameshudson.com
