“After all, a room that looks like a million dollars is worth nothing if it is not comfortable” Nick Ashley.
After my last post ‘scanning for style’ I did some more bookshelf digging and came across Laura Ashley’s Complete Guide to Home Decorating. Laura Ashley, a Welsh designer and entrepreneur is best known for her romantic, Victorian-inspired women’s clothing and her signature English country-style home furnishings.
This book first came out in 1989 and was reprinted in 1992, so excuse the yellowish tint on these scans, it’s over 30 years old and has clearly lived a long life on plenty of bookshelves aside from mine.
Over the last few years, there has been a complete revival in country-style home interiors, from ‘cottage core’ to ‘granny chic’ to trends that encourage us to ‘romanticise the every day’, people have been looking at ways to bring more depth and life to their spaces. Beige luxury (which I have never been a fan of personally) started to drift into the background and people went back to redesigning spaces with personality and character, prioritising handcrafted and vintage items that tell a story.