Avoid Common Design Mistakes By Reading These 7 Books

before you build, decorate, or update your home

Education is very important to us and such an essential step in beginning the design process (everyone has a cookbook and we think everyone should have a house book too). Today we’re sharing some of the books that we think are the most helpful in both educating you on both exterior and interior design.

The recommendations below aren’t coffee table books, but are intended more for education, if you’re looking for more of a coffee table/inspiration book, here are a few of our favorites.

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Exterior Design/Architecture Books:

#1 Get Your House Right—This book covers almost all major exterior and interior elements of a home and how to “get them right”. The illustrations are really helpful in explaining the different concepts within the book.

#2 A Field Guide to American Houses—A great reference to architecture that contains everything you need to know about American houses. It’s a great source to help introduce you to new styles or educate you on styles you’ve seen before.

#3 The Not So Big House—This book isn’t necessarily about building a tiny house, but how to create a home that has no wasted space. It touches on how to create comfortable and functional spaces that are in proportion with human scale. The photos in this one are a little bit outdated, but the philosophies are great.

Interior Design Books:

#4 The Foundations of Enduring Spaces—This book is great to study, just quickly reference, or to get inspiration from. It contains great visuals and lots of helpful information.

#5 The Interior Design Handbook—If you’re looking for a book to educate you without being too overwhelming, this is a great one. It’s an easy read with lots of helpful illustrations and great to reference for specific design questions.

#6 The Perfectly Imperfect Home—An inspirational read that discusses how to best decorate your home to fit (and enhance) your lifestyle. Rather than containing actual photographs, this book is full of watercolored images to explain concepts which helps to remove the perfection we are all used to seeing in home magazines and books.

#7 Mark Hampton On Decorating—This book is very clear and easy to follow. Similar to the book above, it contains no images, but rather sketches that help to explain the different concepts. You’ll learn a lot about the decorating process (working with color & pattern, furniture styles, etc.) without feeling like you’re reading a textbook.