Book Review: Ideas by Kelly Hoppen

Kelly Hoppen’s seventh book, Ideas, is out today, once again letting you into her spectacular interior design secrets. With an array of beautiful accompanying pictures, a foreword from Victoria Beckham and Hoppen’s signature details, it’s a style bible.

The Queen of Beige does divide opinion – many find her to be a true inspiration and love her for the clean lines and functionality of her designs. After all, we don’t all want to live in a Warhol homage. But others find her style boring and beige. Even so, she’s become a huge success – known for her design, books, inspirational advice as well as celebrity friends and headlines (she’s currently entangled in the NotW phone hacking debacle).

In Ideas, she shares her thirty-plus years of  interior design experience, in what she terms ‘the little black book of ideas’; she details her key principles for each space; and explains how to plan the design whatever you requirements. Any shape, size or budget – for anyone planning to undertake home design or decorating this book is perfect for you.

Her book really focuses on the practicality of a room. Rather than purchasing huge statement pieces she encourages you to analyse what you use the room for; if there’s no room to walk then your room is completely wrong. Review your space and take everything into consideration, from windows to internal architecture.   Each room must be an experience: address everywhere in the house including hallways, corridors and stairs, as ‘they are the linking spaces so your design choices – should be in keeping with the overall feel of your house’.

The key theme to the book is to create a home for the way you live focusing on the emotional attachment that is associated with design. It’s not your standard fashionista’s opinion of what is stylish; the book aims to emphasis your personal feelings; finding your own look, you love. Hoppen hopes to encompass all your senses: touch, taste, smell, and create a spiritual experience too. She says herself that it ‘nourishes and talks to all the senses,’ – it’s not just aesthetic, it’s emotional.

Hoppen teaches you to really look at what you’re decorating. So if it’s a ‘living’ room the key to living is feeling enjoyment – and ‘living is feeling’.  You can see how Hoppen’s infamous style highlights her philosophy – she uses beige to her advantage and uses floating shelves to add character to a room.

Identifying key elements of interior design, Hoppen describes how every element is intertwined and cannot be removed from each other. She says: ‘Texture, form, colour, space, light and balance together form the elements that play their part in all [my] work.’

As you journey through the book Kelly Hoppen lets you in on some of her insider tips: ‘I see space in three parts simultaneously; the grid forms the lines of a room and creates the backdrop, the zoning defines its function and the layout, and the flow brings the whole together and creates the movement.’

She takes you from the very beginning of your design journey, suggesting you create moodboards. ‘A good beginning starts with a focused mind, and there is no better design practice than that of laying out moodboards to get your vision underway. Seeing your influences pinned to the boards will increase your confidence and skill,’ she says. ‘Leave them for a day, then revisit them with a fresh eye.’

Hoppen is with you right to the very end of refurbishing your room, adding those classic finishing touches to complete the designer look you’re after.

Ideas promises to be another success for Hoppen and with an upcoming TV show, is there no stopping this design icon?

Are you trawling the internet looking for great designs, in need of help redecorating your room? Then why not begin with our moodboard tool to position all your inspiration in one place. Or if you need to zone your room like Hoppen does, use our 3D tool; its an easy and effective way to position all your room items.  Our tools can help with all of Kelly Hoppen’s checklists.