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An independent interiors publication. Explore beautiful rooms, understand the decisions behind them and find pieces for your own home.

Generous cobalt living room with geometric artwork, pale Stone-cotton sofa, ribbed leather armchair and a pale rug beneath a timber coffee table.
The room that starts with art · Editorial study

Beautiful rooms,
better understood.

Start with one painting. Follow its colours through a living room, see why the arrangement works and find the pieces behind it.

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A room to borrow from.

Each Room is a visual design study, with its layout, colour choices and ideas to try at home.

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A question worth asking.

Stories look closer at design and everyday life, from an awkward corner to the cost of a home.

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A piece for your home.

Find product sources and selected alternatives in our UK and US Shop. Buy directly from the retailer.

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Three rooms to start with.

A garden under glass, a plum-coloured reception room and two seats in a compact home. Different spaces, with decisions you can borrow.

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Green-framed conservatory with a pale reclaimed-wood dining table and matching seat benches cropped in the foreground, burnt-orange sofa, ochre armchair and open garden doors.ROOM 09 · Living Room

The conservatory that feels like a room

A rust sofa, mustard armchair and two useful tables give this conservatory a life beyond the garden view. Here is how the furniture, rugs and lighting make it somewhere to stay.

Explore the room
Plum walls, ochre velvet and a dark floral artwork give this Victorian reception its weight. A generous patterned rug gathers the seating around a round glass table.ROOM 46 · Living Room

The plum reception room

The open doorway is part of the sitting arrangement. A round glass table gathers the seats without turning the route to the next room into an obstacle course.

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Compact blue-walled living room with a grey two-seater, striped red-and-blue rug, framed colour study, linen curtains, layered cushions, warm lamps and a television on a geometric wooden sideboard.ROOM 136 · Living Room

Two seats and a blue wall

A small living room still needs somewhere to put your feet up, watch television and leave a book halfway through. Here, a blue wall and a striped rug make the first impression; curtains, lamplight and a throw over the sofa arm make you want to stay.

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Read a little further.

Art that holds its own, a whole house reconsidered and what £500,000 buys across England and Wales.

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ART & THE ROOM

The art shouldn't match the cushions

Art does not need to match a room. It needs to belong in it. A closer look at scale, colour, framing and the walls we tend to overlook.

9 min readRead the story

WHOLE HOUSE · NO. 1

One Victorian house, opened up

Supper at the back, television at the front, work in the box room. Seven before-and-after spaces explore how a familiar Victorian terrace could work better as a whole.

13 min readRead the story

DESIGN & EVERYDAY LIFE

The £500,000 Question

The same budget means radically different homes across England and Wales. Hybrid work promised more freedom to choose. So where did people actually go?

12 min readRead the story

INSIDE THE COVER ROOM

Find the pieces behind the cover room.

The leather chair and geometric artwork helped shape the room. Open a piece for its sizes, finishes and retailer details, or read how the design came together.

  • Cobalt
  • Chalk
  • Rust
  • Tobacco
  • Brass
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Objects worth noticing.

Pieces chosen for our Rooms and Stories, from UK and US retailers.

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Violet 1930s sitting room with a sofa and two armless chairs gathered around a clear centre, a hearth mirror and several pools of lamplight.

When the evenings draw in.

A room changes after daylight leaves. Find a place to settle, then look at what the lighting can do.

Explore the room Read the lighting story

DESIGN & DRAWINGS

A room, on paper.

A plan reveals what a photograph cannot: the route through a room, the space around a table, the distance between seats. Our drawings examine these relationships before attention turns to fabrics and finishes.

CyshiaArchitecture Graduate & Design Contributor

Her drawings and spatial notes will appear across Room Studies, Stories and selected reader questions.

Meet our contributors

THE ROOM STUDY

Beautiful rooms.
Better understood.

About The Room Study