There is the library as a room in itself. There are bookshelves used as practical or prestigious furniture. And there are books which are more than a simply decorative accessory. Organized with taste, they can astonish visitors, regardless of the room.

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Books adapt to all styles, from the rural to the contemporary, not to forget lounge. They can also generate the desired decorative virtue: classical elegance, warmth and intimacy, whimsical, disorder and anarchy. The role of the book in decoration is underestimated.

Books fit with all materials: glass, wood, bamboo, vinyl, marble. Mobile, they can be placed anywhere or permanently: At the end of a table, on a couch, on a fireplace mantel, on a night table, near the bath and even on the floor if you stack them into a column.[……]

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You get up feeling sluggish one morning. Dark and pessimistic. Someone peels an orange just beside you. What a pleasant odor. Suddenly things seem much brighter.

Do the blues hit you in the middle of the day? You have a glass of fresh orange juice and suddenly you feel lighter.

A depressing evening after a bad day. Dusk is fantastic. You take two minutes to contemplate it. The orange of the sky soothes you. You already feel better.

Orange is freshness, love of life and calmness. Three sensations that perform miracles in decoration.

The colour orange stimulates the senses without putting them into the overdrive that comes from red, while leaving the softness and serenity of yellow.

The ideal vivid colour, orange is a must for a room with citrus tones, along with citrus yellow and lime green. Add some red and you obtain a vintage effect that evokes the happenings of the 1960s.

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No need to drown a room in orange to appreciate this warm colour, even though it does exist. We once saw a living room that was orange from one end to another. Projectors mounted in various places of the room mirrored shining halos on numerous glass surfaces. The effect was staggering.[……]

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Do you like comfort, order and elegance? Take an Art Deco tour. You will find yourself in a world of luxury and prestige and you will come back with a head full of ideas.

A little history. The Great War (1914-1918) just ended. So much blood, so much death! Europe is traumatized. People need their spirits uplifted. They have to be convinced that happiness is coming.

In France, hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed by the war must be rebuilt. The ones that are still standing need a lot of work. Everything has to be redone. During this time, thousands of farmers are leaving the devastated countryside to live in Paris. Things have to be done fast, but what to do?

Industrials and artists at the time focus on a style that was born just before the war: Art Deco. It also lends itself well to new technologies and mass production in factories.[……]

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Sylvie enjoyed the lounge style. She wore coloured clothing that reflected the ambient light. It was like a thousand lights reflecting off a plastic surface. She also had a weakness for vinyl handbags. They also reflected a thousand shimmering lights.

Sylvie liked lounges. Not just for the decor, but also for the ambience and the easy listening music. A renter, given her age, Sylvie promised herself that she would have a lounge in her first house. The living room, the bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom—it didn’t matter which one.

To create a lounge atmosphere worthy of a bar, it has to be soft, cool, relaxed. It has to make you feel like sitting back, relaxing and talking.

There is lounge glamour, highlighted by classic elegance, as seen in movies of the 40s and 50s with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner. Piano bar, dark colours, deluxe decor.

The ludic lounge appeared in the 60s. It’s almost science fiction decor. Bright colours, odd shapes, omnipresent light. Everything is flashy and chic.[……]

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Collectable books always make nice gifts for the simple reason that we refuse to buy them ourselves, under the pretext that it’s an unnecessary expense. A foolish waste of money we would say.

Sometimes we tell ourselves that we will buy ourselves the coveted book one day. Time passes by and we forget and never buy it.

Are you wracking your brains trying to figure out what to buy for your loved ones for Christmas? If someone on your list has a decoration bug, why not offer a coffee table book?

Even better if they’re about to redecorate. They could study ideas, compare styles, put their imagination to work.

There are so many new books and reprints that here is a short list of what’s available.

Ros Byam Shaw proposes his coffee table sized book English Eccentric. It’s dynamite! In this work, we are immersed in the dizzying heights of the British imagination. The book features 14 residences whose owners include an artist, designer, a documentarian, a politician, a hairstylist.

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The editor emphasizes the courage of these owners when it comes to interior decoration. That says it all. This book contains a wealth of ideas as the author avoids trends and unabashedly seeks originality.[……]

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Turquoise has very few takers in decoration. Yes, we are delighted by the turquoise waters of the Pacific islands, we contemplate the turquoise of the sky, we sigh in envy when we see a turquoise pearl, our eyes widen in front of turquoise satin sheets.

So where does this reluctance come from?[……]

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The bedroom is a unique room to decorate. It is the only one where parents, friends and strangers do not have access. These people go through the living room, the kitchen and the bathroom, but not the bedroom. That leaves us free to decorate it any way we like, from the outlandish to the classic.

You feel like redoing your bedroom décor? The possibilities are endless.

The classical style is always easy to defend. Simple and discreet, with an abundance of glass, moulding to modify the volumes, sometimes old-fashioned wallpaper. A few knickknacks, maybe a vase on each side of the bed. A bookshelf topped by a bouquet of flowers. White and cream are often colours that evoke intimacy. Grey as well.

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Step it up a notch and you have a sumptuous bedroom. Turquoise, violet and purple offer an ambience of royalty. Mouldings provide a rich look. Velour or quilts as bed linen complete the majestic effect conveyed by the bedroom, to which this couch or padded headboard, velour curtains and canopy bed are added.[……]

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