Learning to See:
Bringing the World Around You Into Your Home
by Vicente Wolf

Hardcover – 199 pages
ISBN: 1579652174

In Learning to See, interior designer Vicente Wolf provides real-life advice and over 160 inspiring photographs to open the door on the creative process behind successful interiors, and to open your eyes to the designer within yourself to encourage you to create beautiful rooms that reflect your own taste and style.

This guy is quite famous and it’s interesting to note that he doesn’t have formal interior design training. Perhaps that’s why he’s more about helping your reflect your own style rather than his?

Canada, to order – Learning to See: Bringing the World Around You Into Your Home

US to order – Learning to See: Bringing the World Around You Into Your Home

The Home Zone:
Making the Most of Your Living Space
with an introduction by Caroline Clifton-Mogg

Hardcover – 256 pages
ISBN: 1841722677

This book is one of my favorites. In The Home Zone, top interiors writers and hundreds of inspirational photographs of real homes guide readers through five popular decorating styles and discuss working with color, lighting, flooring, window treatments and soft furnishings. You’ll also learn about space planning and issues specific to each area, from choosing the right bathroom faucet to picking a kitchen layout that works.

To order The Home Zone in Canada

To order The Home Zone in the US

Designing With Spirituality:
The Creative Touch
by Carol Soucek King

Hardcover: 160 pages
ISBN: 0866366911

Designing With Spirituality: The Creative Touch explores the link between good design and its spiritual reflection. Beautiful photographs of 30 residences in the US, Italy, Mexico, Japan, Bali, and Brazil illustrate how color, form, texture, light and proportion are used to express the idea of home as a place which can truly feed one’s soul. I loved the wide spectrum of materials, techniques and styles shown in this book.

In the US, learn more and order – Designing With Spirituality

In Canada, learn more and order – Designing with Spirituality

Colors for Your Every Mood:
Discover Your True Decorating Colors
by Leatrice Eiseman

Paperback – 176 pages
ISBN: 189212338X

In Colors for Your Every Mood, sumptuous photographs of different rooms, in a wide variety of decorating styles, are accompanied by color wheel basics and an in depth look at how different colors inspire different moods and reactions in people.

The goal is to help you determine how you want yourself, your family and guests to feel as they enter and settle in each room in your home.

You’ll learn which color combinations create calm and soothing moods… which demand drama and excitement… which make a place seem whimsical and carefree. You will discover which colors can change a room from formal to romantic, from classic to exotic, and more. There’s even a quiz to help you discover your own reactions to color.

US orders – Colors For Your Every Mood: Discover Your True Decorating Colors

Canadian orders – Colors for Your Every Mood: Discover Your True Decorating Colors

Tricia Guild on Color:
Decoration, Furnishing, Display
by Tricia Guild

Paperback.
ISBN: 0847818772

While Color Palettes is serene, Tricia Guild on Color is bold. Based in England, designer Tricia Guild is famous for her ability to mix color and pattern. Her company produces fabric, wallpaper and home furnishings.

In 200 color photographs she inspires us to go beyond safe, but often dreary, color choices. Her glorious palettes explore the fuller potential of color to lend energy and warmth to an interior. She explores ways of combining and contrasting shades and shows how light, scale and proportion can affect color values. The incredible pictures alone are worth the price of this book!

US orders – Tricia Guild on Color

Canadian orders – Tricia Guild on Color

Color Schemes For Every Room
by Annie Sloan

Paperback – 160 pages
ISBN: 1571457615

In Color Schemes, author and renowned paint expert Annie Sloan presents over 30 inspiring themes and 300 color palettes, ranging form the light-filled hues of the Scandinavian landscape to the vibrant tones and rhythms of a Latin carnival and the ethereal colors of the French Riviera.

The presentation really helps demonstrate how our perception of a color is so strongly influenced by the other colors around it.

Canada, to order – Annie Sloan’s Color Schemes: For Every Room

US, to order – Annie Sloan’s Color Schemes: For Every Room

Color Palettes: Atmospheric Interiors
Using the Donald Kaufman Color Collection
by Suzanne K. Butterfield, Donald Kaufman, Jacqueline Goewey

Hardcover: 208 pages
ISBN: 060960144X

Filled with information that takes the mystery out of how color works in a room. Twenty six amazing interiors are shown with explanations of why each palette was chosen, and how individual colors affect each other and the rooms in which they are used. The color palettes are shown as swatches to provide ready-made color groupings that we can adapt for our own homes.

I was introduced to this book by a Client who had just completed a very modern, but fairly neutral, ocean front home. I was there to design custom runners and placemats for her 12 foot long kitchen table. I immediately fell in love with this book and bought a copy. I warn you, it’s hard not to head out to the paint store after looking at the pictures in Color Palettes! The ideas it contains will work in any home, large or small.

Canada orders – Color Palettes

US orders – Color Palettes

House of Belief:
Creating Your Personal Style
by Kelee Katillac
Paperback: 160 pages
ISBN: 1586850741

In House of Belief: Creating Your Personal Style, author and interior designer Kelee Katillac urges us not to become slaves to design trends, but inspires us to find a decorating style that is a reflection of our personal style and creative spirit.

Through exercises and examples, Katillac helps unleash the creative and artistic powers that we all possess. She builds a strong case for shaping one’s home into a place of inspiration and affirmation.

After reading this book in 2000, I immediately took down all the pictures hanging in my home that I had inherited but didn’t like, or was tired of looking at. Within days I had moved all my furniture around and made my space more of a reflection of who I was, and not what I thought it “should” look like. My whole mood and energy changed after that.

In Canada, to Order – House of Belief: Creating Your Personal Style

In US, to Order – House of Belief: Creating Your Own Personal Style

A Room of her Own:
Women’s Personal Spaces
by Chris Casson Madden
Hardcover: 224 pages
ISBN: 0517599392

A Room of her Own: Women’s Personal Spaces introduces us to the sanctuaries various women have created in their own homes. Whether it’s a quiet sewing room, a tent in the garden, or even a corner of a busy kitchen, each woman has found a personal space, for nurturing her body, mind and spirit.

The famous (Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou and Ali MacGraw) are included with the not so famous; yet all the women lead very busy lives. Artists, entrepreneurs, mothers— each woman offers a glimpse into her life.

Each chapter contains design ideas and creative solutions that we can integrate into our own lives, as we try to cope with the loss of private time and space for ourselves that is a byproduct of our busy schedules.

Canada Order- A Room of Her Own: Women’s Personal Spaces

US Order – A Room of Her Own: Women’s Personal Spaces

Very sensitive to the subtleties of color and how each hue is effected by those around it, Debra Gould was dubbed "as color conscious as Matisse" in a magazine cover story.

A house is just an empty shell until we make it a home by filling it with color, furnishings, art and special objects that have meaning for us.

Through thoughtful placement of these, we build an environment that enriches us, provides sanctuary and also one that is welcoming to others. They feel it as soon as they enter our space.

I’ll be sharing a number of books with you that I have found helpful in learning about design and color— more importantly they inspired me to think about interiors in a new way.

I have all of the books I’ll be recommending in my own library and I hope you will find them as inspiring as I have.

I welcome your feedback and any recommendations you have for similar finds. You can also send me your color and design questions for me to answer in an upcoming issue of Six Elements News.

Whenever you’re looking for an inspiring book, just click on the category “Decorating and Color Books” in the column on the right and you’ll see a list of posts on each book in the collection. When you click on any title you can read my summary, see a cover design and find links to order online from amazon.com and amazon.ca.

Debra Gould, President Six Elements Inc.

Internationally recognized home staging expert Debra Gould is President of Six Elements Inc. and creator of the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. An entrepreneur for 20 years and author of several guides, Debra has staged millions of dollars worth of real estate and uses her expertise to train others worldwide.