Some coffee table books are so great, that you don’t just decorate your coffee table with them, you read them cover to cover. Tara Shaw’s influential interior design book Soul of the Home: Designing with Antiques is a “must-have” for anyone who has inherited antiques or an interest in shopping for antiques.
Unless you’re refurbishing a historic home for preservation, decorating with antiques requires an eye for incorporating centuries-old design details into contemporary rooms and landscapes. In Soul of the Home, Tara Shaw walks the reader through gorgeous ideas on how to intermingle furnishings from different centuries. Along the way, she also touches on topics like antique shopping and the tough question of furniture restoration.
Visionary room layouts and landscapes
Tara Shaw shares nearly 300 pages of full-colour photographs taken from her interior design portfolio. Her designs give life to a style that is simultaneously tranquil and glamorous. In her notes, Shaw gives detailed and clear thoughts on how contemporary minimalism can set the stage for opulent antiques.
“How do you combine disparate eras and styles so they feel cohesive? Look for patterns and themes that they have in common and try to connect the dots. This is easier than it sounds when you consider that many styles over history have influenced each other.”—Tara Shaw, Soul of the Home: Designing with Antiques
Centuries of antique furnishings
If you don’t know where to start with antique shopping, Tara Shaw provides a primer on influential eras in furniture across French, Italian, and Swedish designers. She also offers advice on where to shop and how to take a long-term view towards your antique collection.
“A sophisticated room will have layers of influence: eighteenth-century French or Swedish chairs with contemporary consoles and cocktail tables; painted Italian candelabra and midcentury modern lamps.”—Tara Shaw, Soul of the Home: Designing with Antiques
Embracing imperfections in interior design
Decorating with antiques requires both a willingness to restore furniture and an openness to mixing and matching. Rather than being intimidated by the thought of allowing a young child or puppy to touch an expensive antique, families can embrace the stories of high quality furnishings that have long withstood wear and tear.
“Antiques show their age and history, blemishes and all. That kind of imperfection is a lovely thing to live with because it’s so forgiving. It’s just what I want to come home to.”—Tara Shaw, Soul of the Home: Designing with Antiques
While over-the-top luxury can create dazzling spaces for hospitality that delight guests for a night or a week, Tara Shaw shows the way to more a refined concept of luxury that can turn a home into a year-round oasis. Her book Soul of the Home is an authentic window into everyday living with antiques.