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Colour: Banish Beige. Boost Colour. Transform Your Home.
Colour is clever. It is the cheapest and most transformative thing you can do to a space; capable of injecting instant glamour and cool, making a space cosy, luxurious and indulgent, and defining your style more effectively than any other design element. If you want to introduce colour into your home but don't know where to start or are scared of taking the plunge, Abigail is your perfect guide, delivering the know how of a hands-on, super-exuberant stylist in brilliant, bite-size chunks. Learn how to figure out your colour palette, to trust your instincts and identify your ideal shade - the core colour that will make a home distinctly and beautifully yours. Drawing on her palette of inky, swampy, bottom-of-the-lake hues, easy-on-the eye neutrals and intoxicating brights, Abigail reveals how to build a room through colour, showing how to up the ante with accents and focal points, layer lighting, add drama through accessories, and play around with paint, fabric and pattern. Make your small rooms look larger and dark rooms feel brighter Abigail provides colour inspiration for every room of your home. Whether you want to start small, with pops of colour, or introduce a whole new colour scheme to your home, Colour gives you all the information you need to reinvent your space and turn it into a home that you will never want to leave!
240 pages, Hardcover
First published April 23, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 31, 2021
Found Abigail Ahern when she judged on Interior Design Masters (seriously underrated, IMO, and I want more seasons) and fell in love with her marriage of playful design and gem tones. I want to be her when I grow up.
I'm in interior design classes and none have talked about concrete tips like "keep the palette small to pair crazy things together" (not a direct quote). This book has many of those specific tips but mostly shines in the heaps upon heaps of empowerment Ahern offers the reader.
I want to say that this book isn't for everyone. Ahern is clearly trying to convert people to the dark side and as much as I love the dark spaces and palettes shown, doing this in your entire home is a hard sell. So if you're cemented in Scandi-land, this is not for you.
The book offers examples from several designers and something that I appreciated (and, again, wish my textbooks did more) was that Ahern would show a picture of a space, label the mood that she read/ was trying to be conveyed and explained what aspect of the room made it that mood. For example, she talked about how a red room can be overpowering but it was mellowed out by being included throughout the room and was created with quality paint.
I do wish that the book had more examples of some of the concepts Ahern was talking about. So when writing about breaking a certain rule, she talked about how to do it in a way that worked but there wasn't a picture example half the time. I also acknowledge that amending this would make it a massive and expensive book which would be quite a loss as this is a very approachable book in price and readability.
Now to paint my whole house inky blue...
I'm in interior design classes and none have talked about concrete tips like "keep the palette small to pair crazy things together" (not a direct quote). This book has many of those specific tips but mostly shines in the heaps upon heaps of empowerment Ahern offers the reader.
I want to say that this book isn't for everyone. Ahern is clearly trying to convert people to the dark side and as much as I love the dark spaces and palettes shown, doing this in your entire home is a hard sell. So if you're cemented in Scandi-land, this is not for you.
The book offers examples from several designers and something that I appreciated (and, again, wish my textbooks did more) was that Ahern would show a picture of a space, label the mood that she read/ was trying to be conveyed and explained what aspect of the room made it that mood. For example, she talked about how a red room can be overpowering but it was mellowed out by being included throughout the room and was created with quality paint.
I do wish that the book had more examples of some of the concepts Ahern was talking about. So when writing about breaking a certain rule, she talked about how to do it in a way that worked but there wasn't a picture example half the time. I also acknowledge that amending this would make it a massive and expensive book which would be quite a loss as this is a very approachable book in price and readability.
Now to paint my whole house inky blue...
April 3, 2019
Lots of unconventional design inspiration! Helped me figure out some stuff about my apartment and I have only changed some pillows out as a result, but have many more plans.
July 4, 2015
The book itself is very well-designed and would make a great coffee table addition, but the content I did not like.
Firstly, all the colours featured are mostly dark schemes, because - as the author herself states - she loves dark hues, and black in particular. All the interiors pictured looked so gloomy, moody, small, cramped, dreary and awfully dark to me. If that's what you're looking for, then this book is for you.
Secondly, the author's opinions are not convincing at all. E.g. She tries to argue that dark-coloured interiors are help boost one's mood, as it did hers. The only thing I felt when viewing all those dark interiors was gloom and depression though. And she says the dark colours help make the rooms "cosy". Well, I didn't feel that at all. She then claims the dark colours "do not make the room look small", contrary to popular belief. I'm not buying that one either.
Thirdly, the author contradicts herself a great deal. E.g. She says the room should be well-lit and letting light in from windows is important. She then goes on to say that mirrors are important because they help disperse and add light to the room. But if light is so important, why choose such dark colours? In an already poorly-lit room, choosing such dark-coloured walls, ceilings and floors will only make the room look darker! I rolled my eyes at some of the interiors featured which showed open windows and mirrors in an attempt to make the room brighter, when the simple solution was NOT to choose such dark coloured walls, ceilings and floors in the first place! The lack of logic was so incredibly frustrating.
Lastly, I did not agree with a lot of the author's analyses of the interiors featured. E.g. Some of the furniture pieces she thinks are "opulent" or "elegant", I felt were excessive, comical or just plain ugly. Some colour combinations she thought were nice, I found to be off-putting. And for a room featured that was luxe-style but had a raw brick wall, she said that was a touch of genius; I thought it was awful and unfinished!
When it comes to design, things are subjective. I guess this book may still be useful in showing you what dark interiors look like and whether they are for you or not. For me, this book showed me what to avoid rather than embrace.
Firstly, all the colours featured are mostly dark schemes, because - as the author herself states - she loves dark hues, and black in particular. All the interiors pictured looked so gloomy, moody, small, cramped, dreary and awfully dark to me. If that's what you're looking for, then this book is for you.
Secondly, the author's opinions are not convincing at all. E.g. She tries to argue that dark-coloured interiors are help boost one's mood, as it did hers. The only thing I felt when viewing all those dark interiors was gloom and depression though. And she says the dark colours help make the rooms "cosy". Well, I didn't feel that at all. She then claims the dark colours "do not make the room look small", contrary to popular belief. I'm not buying that one either.
Thirdly, the author contradicts herself a great deal. E.g. She says the room should be well-lit and letting light in from windows is important. She then goes on to say that mirrors are important because they help disperse and add light to the room. But if light is so important, why choose such dark colours? In an already poorly-lit room, choosing such dark-coloured walls, ceilings and floors will only make the room look darker! I rolled my eyes at some of the interiors featured which showed open windows and mirrors in an attempt to make the room brighter, when the simple solution was NOT to choose such dark coloured walls, ceilings and floors in the first place! The lack of logic was so incredibly frustrating.
Lastly, I did not agree with a lot of the author's analyses of the interiors featured. E.g. Some of the furniture pieces she thinks are "opulent" or "elegant", I felt were excessive, comical or just plain ugly. Some colour combinations she thought were nice, I found to be off-putting. And for a room featured that was luxe-style but had a raw brick wall, she said that was a touch of genius; I thought it was awful and unfinished!
When it comes to design, things are subjective. I guess this book may still be useful in showing you what dark interiors look like and whether they are for you or not. For me, this book showed me what to avoid rather than embrace.
October 27, 2015
I understand that this is a book about using dark colors on walls but the color reproduction of the photos--and these choices are intentional, not a misprint--make the rooms look muddy and indistinct and just messy and unappealing.
December 5, 2015
If I never hear the words pad or biz again it will be too soon.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews