Best Home Design Books - share yours with #CMChome

Jumpstart January with the Best Home Design Books

Posted on 11. Jan, 2013 by in How To's

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Grace Bonney, creator of mega-home design blog Design*Sponge, says it best, “You don’t have to live in a big city and you don’t have to have a huge budget. Inspiration is everywhere”.

With that in mind, we’ve curated some of our most-loved and most-used decor and design books to jump start your January. If you’re longing for a new look in your apartment these books are a great inspiration resource.

Sure there’s Pinterest, powerhouse websites like Houzz, Apartment Therapy, and lovely online magazines like Rue and Lonny – but there’s something masterful about a book. Having pages to flip and place sticky notes on or something at hand you can always reference. And it doesn’t hurt that these books are really pretty.

Design*Sponge at Home

Design Sponge at Home book
At a glance:

  • Love the beautiful cover, sure to jazz up any bookcase
  • Lots of photos of beautiful homes and an entire section is dedicated to step-by-step DIY projects for any skill level
  • Includes reference guides like: the right type of tools, easy tricks and measurements and a section on flower arranging
  • Pages of ‘before and after’ rooms from real people with real(alistic) budgets

    • Plus you can always get more content – including an awesome list of things to do in Gainesville, FL – anytime on their website at Design*Sponge.

    Domino: The Book of Decorating

    Domino The Book of Decorating - Best Home Decor Books
    This stylish magazine closed it’s door years ago but the best of their best lives on in this stunning guide to home decorating and projects.

    Good for:

  • Selecting the right style and size of furniture for your space
  • A nice guide on how to work with large rooms, awkward floor plans and small space solutions – for all areas of the home or apartment
  • Stunning photography and color guides to selecting the palette for your rooms
  • Real life examples (and samples) of how to mix and match: pieces, patterns, fabrics, artwork etc to bring a space all together

    • This book doesn’t say “purchase this picture frame/nightstand/bookscase here” but it gives you visual cues that you can you can mimic at your favorite retailers.

    The Nest Home Design Handbook

    The Nest Home Design Handbook - Best Home Decor Book

    Sister website to TheKnot.com, TheNest.com‘s book The Nest Home Design Handbook, acts like more of a ‘first home decor manual’ as opposed to their website – which is filled with a long list lifestyle categories: money, real estate, cooking, relationships, pets, etc.

    This useful stunner includes:

  • Great breakdowns of what works in a home like: ‘how far your couch should be from your TV’ or ‘how to hang art like a gallery pro’
  • There’s a floor grid with furniture pieces to cut out. You can experiment with layout to get things exactly (and literally) to scale
  • Does home decorating sound like Greek to you? You don’t really know what you want, but you know what you like? This book has easy questionnaires that will help define your style.
  • Mixing and matching new and hand-me-down/revived pieces

    • Be warned, many of the photos in this book have a strong contemporary, modern, minimal style – so if this isn’t you and you need more variety this may not be the way to go. But the measurement tips, questionnaires and style check lists are universal.

    What are you favorite design books or blogs?
    Made a neat decor project for your CMC Apartment?
    We’d love to see, share with hashtag #CMChome

    Melanie

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    2 Responses to “Jumpstart January with the Best Home Design Books”

    1. Holly

      11. Jan, 2013

      One of my favorites is the new Young House Love book by the blogging duo. It’s filled with awesome home DIY projects and it’s super colorful!

      Reply to this comment

      • Melanie

        11. Jan, 2013

        Agreed! That’s a good one, also good Modern Vintage Style by Emily Chalmers – P.S. stay tuned for a special giveaway Holly

        Reply to this comment

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