Blogging Elle Decor: Reading Rooms

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Sure we've thought about decorating a room with book covers, but what about decorating a room guided by a book? Like many, we love digging in to a good book bursting with visual details. And, along with the rest of all y'all visual folk out there, we sometimes applaud, but more often cringe when we see those rooms come to life on screen. That said, we were intrigued by the premise of Elle Decor's goal of creating illustrations of rooms based on passages from some well known novels.

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

Too bad we can't say we're all that impressed. It's a fun concept, and we like the compare and contrast of having the passage and the illustrations to look at side by side, but these illustrations are perhaps a bit too wimpy to really get us going. Or maybe it's the choice of books?

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

We wonder if it wouldn't be more fun to design a room around a character from a book rather than literally translating a room....

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Anyone ever approach decorating a room from this angle? What books or characters would you use for inspiration?

Images from Elle Decor, March 2008

Comments (6)

Can someone scrounge up the room (I think Domino did it) based off of one of the women in the bloomebury group? That was a great concept. They took her general style, and some pics of the group together and designed a room inspired by her in a studio in nyc--the finished product was awesome!

The Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Oregon, features rooms author-themed rooms, including Virginia Woolf. I have stayed there several times. My experience was that the decor was a little hit and miss in terms of fabulousness, with (naturally) the higher priced rooms being lovelier. The Poe room is seriously goth and creepy. The Oscar Wilde room (which has a single twin bed) was cozy. The Dr. Seuss room, where I most recently stayed, was playful and fun. The Fitzgerald room was posh and elegant. And Colette was an absolute romantic dream. (I haven't stayed in all of these but I did peak into the empty rooms.) In addition, the innkeepers are very warm and friendly. I highly recommend the place.

This is scary, but looking at the first picture, before the jump, I instantly knew it was the Red Room from Jane Eyre.

so this probably half fits here and half on that home post from a day or two ago, but I have always wanted to live at howards end. it totally doesn't fit my current aesthetic, but ever since I first read that book when I was a child, I have wanted that house. I still look for it whenever I am in england.

I've loved this idea for a long time. I'm an avid reader and when I got into reading design blogs I started writing here and there about my ongoing obsession with Satis House from Great Expectations and interiors that look like they could be inspired by Miss Havisham or Great Expectations.

http://reclaimingmisshavisham.wordpress.com