Interior Design help- please suggest resources to learn basic knowledge

December 10, 2018 8:48 AM

I work in an interior design adjacent business. I think I have a decent eye, and a basic knowledge of furniture eras and color theory, but I'd love to learn more...

What are some good resources to learn how to put rooms together, what works with what and why etc. Blogs, books, websites, I'm looking for anything that will help me kind of design an -approach- to decorating, like formulas I can use to help me edit out colors, fabrics, furniture pieces, that may be good looking on their own, but don't cohere into a pleasing whole.
Thank you for any help you can offer.

posted by cascando to Home & Garden (4 answers total)

This is a slightly off-the-wall suggestion, but: go to used book stores or thrift stores and buy up their old interior design books. You can get scores of them for super-cheap, because they're totally outdated and nobody wants them anymore. And the fact that they're outdated is part of the point - when you leaf through a 70s interior design book, it immediately becomes VERY apparent what still works and what really really doesn't. There are some timeless lessons mixed in with all the nonsense. And on the flip side, having these books around to refer to and giggle over will also help save you from the trap of making every room so very up-to-the-minute that it looks ridiculous in 15 years. Doing this a lot as a kid helped me develop my approach to decorating a lot more than I realized.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:17 AM on December 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

My favourite colour selecting book is Kevin McCloud's Choosing Colours. Pub by Quadrille, 2007. Got mine in a library sale for $3.00. Very inspiring and helps me when I'm lost for colour inspiration - is also historical period based as a kind of extra layer of info.

Visit local homes that are for sale, you can use each one as a kind of catalogue.
posted by unearthed at 9:59 AM on December 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

Domino Magazine's "The Domino Decorating Books Box Set: The Book of Decorating and Your Guide to a Stylish Home" is my go-to series for interior design foundations and trouble shooting. If you don't want to buy the set and had to just get one of the two books, I'd go with "Domino: The Book of Decorating: A Room-by-Room Guide to Creating a Home That Makes You Happy" (the green one).

They are "home" oriented, yes, but still explore all the basic design elements, concepts and themes you need to know. They're well written, pleasing and fun to read.
posted by nightrecordings at 11:48 AM on December 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

A Handbook for Interior Designers is a sorta 'Interior Design 101' book, meant to replicate an entire interior design education in a single ~100 pg book. As such, it covers everything (briefly) that a professional would do to design an interior -- surveys of the space, drawing up plans, coming up with a color scheme, floors and walls, fabrics, furnishings; also putting together sample boards & presentations, and supervising the project. I'm sure a real interior designer would scoff at it, but as someone with a design background (I'm a graphic artist, but seem to completely lack any natural ability with interior design), I find it very useful to understanding how a project comes together. It was exactly what I was looking for when I found it. ymmv
posted by Bron at 7:19 AM on December 11, 2018 [1 favorite]