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Books are the best source of information if you are looking to increase your creativity, interior design knowledge, or understanding of different styles or design rules.

In addition to displaying beautiful interiors and looking pretty on your coffee table, interior design books can inspire you to implement changes in your own home and offer concrete techniques and tips on how to do it.

From the best interior design projects to practical tips for the everyday homeowner, you'll find everything you need in one book!

Interior design books will not only enhance your knowledge, but they will also be inspiring. When you read, you acknowledge your misconceptions and mistakes and open your mind to different perspectives. You understand how design affects the way humans feel about their homes, how it has a great impact on the well-being of a person who lives in that space.

If you are looking for something to read below and are in the mood for some inspiration. We put together a list of the best interior design books and tomes, which are ideal for preparing your next big design project.

1- Live Beautiful

Beautiful design isn’t just pleasant to look at; it improves the quality of our lives. In Live Beautiful, the highly anticipated design book by Athena Calderone, the EyeSwoon creator taps into her international network of interior decorators, fashion designers, and tastemakers to reveal how carefully crafted interiors come together. She also opens the doors to two of her own residences.

With each homeowner, Calderone explores the initial spark of inspiration that incited their design journey. She then breaks down the details of the rooms—like layered textures and patterns, collected pieces, and customized vignettes—and offers helpful tips on how to bring these elevated elements into your own space. Filled with gorgeous photography by Nicole Franzen, Live Beautiful is both a showpiece of exquisite design and a guide to creating a home that’s thoughtfully put together.

2- Made for Living: Collected Interiors for All Sorts of Styles

“Livability is my true north. The materials I use time and again all change with age and wear. Not only is that okay, but it’s also how you achieve more than a re-creation of what you’ve already seen, or what somebody else has done. You can do this, too—I promise.”—from the introduction

Designing a room with all the vibes comes down to how you layer your décor. The more you can mix the elements of your room—your pillows, objects, patterns, and lighting—the more finished it’ll feel: not too new, not too old, but just right.

Known for her eclectic approach that stems from her California cool, Amber Lewis trains your eye in Made for Living, offering friendly advice on everything from nailing that perfect shade of paint to mismatching patterns with wild abandon to choosing a stone finish for new countertops. These pages will help you design a home that's made to be lived in.

3- Still: The Slow Home

Still is an interiors book that invites readers to take on the philosophy of the SLOW movement. Living Sustainably; Local; Organic; and Whole. It talks not just to the question of the physical structures we choose, but also the surrounding environment, and what effect that can have on general happiness and wellbeing. Still includes about a dozen case studies featuring escape homes and owners who live according to these aforementioned principles, enlightening readers as to why they chose this path and how it has benefitted their lives. It is the follow-up to Natalie Walton's successful first title This is Home, and once again features location photography by Chris Warnes.

4- House Dressing: Interiors for Colorful Living

From acclaimed Southern designer Janie Molster comes this lively collection of vibrant interiors and insightful advice for colorful living.

How do you make a home that fits a T? That's tailored to your lifestyle, perfectly expresses your personality, is as comfortable as a second skin, and lets you live life to the fullest? Over more than two decades, Janie Molster has become known for creating family homes that are as bold and sophisticated as they are inviting and practical. In House Dressing, Janie reveals the secrets behind her unique ability to craft dreamy interiors and shares down-to-earth advice for creating your own beautiful and personal spaces.

Showcasing a range of projects, Janie invites readers into country cottages, a riverside retreat, and her own urban farmhouse—Janie's personal design lab—exploring different styles, from glamorous and soulful to contemporary and eclectic. Janie tells the story and describes her thinking behind the design of each one: her recipe for the perfect mix of antique and new, easy but impactful paint treatments you can try, and—based on her own experience—how to create a fabulous home for a family of seven.

Through House Dressing, Janie gives a master class in working with color, pattern, and texture to make spaces that are in turn bold, serene, glamorous, and comfortable, but always personal.

5- Evocative Interiors

Ray Booth’s debut monograph presents curated home interiors by this master of modern elegance.

Trained as an architect, designer Ray Booth’s distinctively elegant, strikingly evocative spaces exude modernism while reflecting a sense of place and history. Booth’s creativity is palpable in spectacular homes demonstrating his ability to harmonize open-plan interiors with the surrounding landscape.

Presented here are Booth’s most celebrated Nashville residences and never-before-seen projects in Palm Beach, Louisiana, New York, Texas, and the Hamptons. Each illustrates his innovative use of furniture as architecture to define rooms, draperies in place of walls, captivating displays of art and mirrors, and an eclectic mix of antiques and contemporary pieces. Among the house, profiles are Booth’s Nashville home, which shows the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School, and reveals his appreciation for traditional materials, particularly large expanses of glass, masonry, and wood. Within a new home or one with a history, Booth applies a fresh vision for today’s living, including fabrics and furnishings accentuating his modern style. Evocative Interiors brings to the fore the work of this leading designer.

6- Basic Art Series

“These seductive books have slick production values, excellent illustrations, and smart texts. Each one is a fast-food, high-energy fix on the topic at hand.” – The New York Times Book Review

With blockbuster exhibitions, record-breaking auction prices, and packed museums, Impressionism remains close contender for the world’s favorite period of painting. Its favorite subjects― from dappled harbor scenes and summer days to vibrant Parisian salons and gardens―brim with optimism and joie de vivre. The works once dismissed as unfinished or imprecise are now beloved for their atmospheric evocation of time and place, as well as the stylistic flair of rapid brushstrokes upon canvas.

The lives and oeuvres of Impressionist pillars Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Rousseau, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and van Gogh are each explored in-depth in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series. Now, this volume combines all 10 monographs into one for the price of three.

What we take for granted today―the relativity of perception depending on the viewer, lighting mood, or location to the object―was then the inspiration for some of the finest paintings in art history. Consider Monet’s 30+ variations of the Rouen Cathedral, Cézanne’s dazzling experimentation with color, Gauguin’s primitivist innovations, or Manet’s scandalous nudes: rarely has a single genre produced so many brilliant artists in such a short time.

Since 1985, TASCHEN’s Basic Art series has published some 200 individual volumes, making it the world’s most successful art-book series. Each title contains extensive text on the artist’s life and work, a detailed biography, and some 100 high-quality color illustrations with explanatory captions. With Ten in One, TASCHEN now presents ten Basic Art monographs in one volume. A must for every art lover!

This book gathers ten Basic Art monographs into one volume featuring:

Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Rousseau, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and van Gogh

a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of each artist, covering their cultural and historical importance

approximately 1,000 illustrations with explanatory captions

7- More Rooms

Bold combinations of primary and secondary colors; exquisitely crafted trims, embroidery, lampshades, and countless accessories (all designed by Ridder); imaginative room surfaces from silver leaf to custom stenciling. These are but a few of the signature elements of a Katie Ridder interior. Katie Ridder: More Rooms explores Ridder’s unique aesthetic room by room to underscore the astounding breadth and depth of her decorating ingenuity. The illuminating text details Ridder’s singularly creative approach to the essential elements of each room, including furniture plan, color, lighting, finishes, pattern, layering, and scale. Illustrated with specially commissioned photographs by Eric Piasecki and featuring an introduction by longtime editor in chief of House & Garden Dominique Browning, Katie Ridder: More Rooms provides endless inspiration for design aficionados.

8- Down to Earth: Laid-back Interiors for Modern Living

Down to Earth picks up right where Lauren Liess’s critically acclaimed Habitat left off. 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 glasshouse on a bluff. While each home has a different architectural style, fingerprints of Liess’s down-to-earth style are evident throughout.

9- Homebody: A Guide to Creating Spaces You Never Want to Leave

In Homebody: A Guide to Creating Spaces You Never Want to Leave, Joanna Gaines walks you through how to create a home that reflects the personalities and stories of the people who live there. Using examples from her own farmhouse as well as a range of other homes, this comprehensive guide will help you assess your priorities and 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 implemented as well as how to blend the looks you're drawn to in order to create spaces that feel distinctly yours. A removable design template at the back of the book offers a step-by-step guide to planning and sketching out your own design plans. The insight shared in Homebody will instill in you the confidence to thoughtfully create spaces you never want to leave.

10- New York School of Interior Design: Home: The Foundations of Enduring Spaces

From the nation's top college for interior design comes a definitive design school in a book and a fabulous reference for decorating the home. In the past decade, the New York School of Interior Design, which was founded in 1916, has drawn a large crossover audience of passionate decorating enthusiasts and hobbyists--many of them private homeowners who know that thinking like a professional is the surest way to achieve a magnificent home.

This lavishly illustrated and highly detailed interior design bible provides a comprehensive education on home design and decor, from color theory principles to space-specific considerations (choosing furniture for a living room) and collaborating with architects and other professionals for the best results. Built on the Home Study Course that is the foundation of the school's curriculum, this book offers an unparalleled mastery of the key elements of enduring design, rendering it the only book you'll ever need.

If you're a student, designer, or homeowner, those books will teach you a thing or two about design, colors, processes, and more.

However, if you are just starting a business as an interior designer, E-design Business Blueprint will provide you with a solid strategy to have more opportunities, expand your customer base, plan the tools you need, and set services and prices for a successful virtual business.

If you're in business right now, The Ultimate Playbook for Interior Design in the New Normal will help you navigate things successfully with a checklist of things to do. It will teach you ways to adapt your business during the new normal of the pandemic to adjust and develop sufficient resilience for your business to operate and navigate successfully.