Revealed: Four interior design books to inspire a home makeover

From Pearl Lowe's take on faded city glamour to scandi chic and biophilic brilliance, these are our top picks of the latest releases

Left and above: Author The main bedroom of Hilton Carter’s home has a selection of plant life to help with air quality and to bring colour into monochrome décor. Below right, Pearl Lowe features the bathroom of her first home in her latest book.

When it comes to gifting, you won’t go far wrong taking the advice of one of the wittiest writers of the 20th century, PG Wodehouse, who said, “The first rule in buying Christmas presents is to select something shiny.”

For home lovers, the sight of a glossy book saturated with shiny pictures and filled with advice to inspire interior projects once the decorations come down in January, is a welcome one and perennially useful.

Pearl Lowe's city chic

Among the new publications is Faded Glamour in the City by 90s “It” girl Pearl Lowe, who after years of partying with the likes of Jude Law and Kate Moss, eschewed the London celebrity social scene and took to rural Somerset, where she renovated an old pile with her husband and lived there happily for 20 years.

Pearl Lowe’s kitchen brings glamour with colour, texture and a variety of furnishings.

A case of the itchy feet brought her back to London, where she’s now renovated and lives in a flat in Notting Hill, documenting the whole experience with a view to writing this new book. 

It’s the third in a series which started with Faded Glamour covering the story of her Somerset renovation, then Faded Glamour by the Sea, an account of doing up her coastal retreat.

A visit to her first home in London’s Camden, Pearl Lowe found the glamorous bathroom virtually unchanged.

Her interpretation of faded glamour as a décor theme is a blend of vintage and cosy elements that meet glamour, resulting in a look that’s full but neither cluttered nor shabby chic, successfully avoiding the vintage time capsule. She’s found her formula and, with a book per home, a way to help them earn their keep.

• Faded Glamour in the City: Romantic Interiors for Urban Living by Pearl Lowe, CICO Books; €28.78
  

  Biophilic brilliance

  Biophilic design has been trending for the last couple of years, although you don’t need an interiors stylist to tell you where to position your plants. However, you do need a little knowledge — so you'll be aware of what watering schedule they should be on and how much light they require. 

Author Abi Dare rolls out an approach to interior design that focuses, firstly, on plants, fresh air, light, sound and water; mimics aspects of nature indirectly with materials, art, shape and colour, and makes room and furniture configurations that have the feel of the natural world and landscape.

Biophillic design doesn’t mean filling the home with plants but bringing in the colours and materials found in nature.

By and large, it’s less about filling the home with plant life, making biophilic design accessible to those who like the idea of nature indoors, but done clutter-free.

• Bring the Outside In: Biophilic Design for a Naturally Beautiful Home by Abi Dare, Ryland Peters Small; €40.29

Scandi chic

Just as appealing as an interior design book is one with lifestyle elements and recipes, as in the case of The Scandinavian Year: Food and thoughts from Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

We’ve become so influenced by the simple good taste of the Scandinavians, already having spilt into our Christmas decorating themes, making woodland chic and hand-crafted installations twisted from foraged branches and twigs a must-have look. The same goes for our adoption of the Swedish hygge and Danish lagom, or at least our own interpretations of them.

Even their cuisine has a simplicity and style to match, with seasonal variations laid out by author Bronte Aurell, month by month, along with shifts in the customs surrounding domestic life that might be old but have timeless relevance. We probably have our own equivalents, but there’s always something alluring about what others have and even novelty.

• The Scandinavian Year: Food and thoughts from Sweden, Denmark and Norway by Bronte Aurell, RPS; €28.78

Plants and practicality

Interior stylist Hilton Carter’s life as an indoor plantsman started with a single specimen back in 2014, a fiddle-leaf fig he named Frank. He said giving it a name would likely make him care for it better — which must have worked, as he’s now the Instagram go-to for tips on how to layer plants and where to put that statement cheese plant.

The main bedroom of Hilton Carter’s home has a selection of plant life to help with air quality and to bring colour into monochrome décor.

With several books now penned on planting up the interior, his latest is Unfurled: Designing a Living Home, which takes us on a snoop of his own home, which he bought during the pandemic years and has since renovated. 

Hilton Carter’s sunroom uses plant life for texture, height and nature indoors.

If you imagine he’s created a jungle as plant lovers often do, you’d be off the mark. 

He certainly practises what he preaches, but his is an accessible approach that wends the plants around the practicalities of domestic life with style.

• Unfurled: Designing a Living Home by Hilton Carter, CICO Books; €28.78.