The Stuff of Life

Hilary Robertson recently launched an amazing book, The Stuff of Life: a guide to interior design and styling.

Many of the houses that interior designers show me look more like hotels than homes. And that's because there is often nothing personal about them: a designer created them and the owners haven't managed to add those personal layers that real homes need:decorative things, vases, sculptures, children's drawings, hats, bicycles..."the stuff of life" as I like to call it."  In her gorgeous new book, sought-after interiors stylist Hilary Robertson reveals a multitude of different ways to style and display the "the stuff of life" - the flotsam and jetsam of possessions that we all slowly acquire. In the first chapter, How to Arrange your Stuff, Hilary identifies and illustrates four different approaches to arrangements and shows how each one can be achieved. In Chapter 2, Where to Arrange It. she suggests places to experiment with arrangements, From Blank walls to windowsills and tabletops. Finally, in Real Homes, Hilary shares inspiration from real-life interiors that fall into four different styles - Neatnik, Bohemian, Sculpture Vulture, and Noble Salvage. Some people are magpies  - they love stuff; finding, collecting, and displaying it, while their opposite, the minimalists, are on a mission to contain it or tame it. The ideas in this book are sure to appeal to both magpies and minimalists and everyone in between.

Take a look at some of the beautiful images from the book below. Photographs by Anna Williams. You can also purchase The Stuff of Life on Amazon.