Reading Rooms

Have your reading room reflect your literary taste - here's some of our examples to get started.

If you haven't known the pleasure of sinking into a good chair with a good book, you're missing out on one of life's great joys. Not least because that moment is usually the beginning (or continuing) of a journey into other worlds, other homes, other rooms with good chairs and a good library.

A great reading room could look and feel like any number of different things - but having a touch of literary flavour in a home never hurt anybody.

The Houses of Hogwarts

A little taste of magic.

If you had a go with the Sorting Hat, where do you think you'd end up? Have a house with more personality than the one Harry Potter grew up in by injecting your own personality into proceedings.

Perhaps you fancy yourself belonging to Gryffindor - be bold, and drag touches of red and gold into your home with a cozy, red leather footstool and antique gold leaf bedside drawers. Think comfy, welcoming furniture with a focus on strong colours.

Or maybe you lean more towards the ambition of the Slytherins and want to imbue some dark elegance into your living space. Go big with this deep green Chesterfield sofa for a strong look worthy of Salazar Slytherin himself, or go with more subtlety on the Gothic route with a low bookstand that has a dark, rich finish for all your secret reads.

You could also echo all the little intrigues and hidden letters (and Horcruxes!) with this writing desk that wouldn't look amiss at Grimmauld Place.

50 Shades of Furnishings

Elegance and decadence with a hint of something more

We can't all be swept away by (or live like) a handsome, mysterious millionaire with a taste for the perverse, but you can take some of it home with you.

Quite literally in fact, as this beautifully made and rather mysterious bedside table was featured in the film and would be perfect for storing naughty bedroom essentials.

But that said - what's a good bedside table without a good bed? Unleash your inner Christian Grey and live it up with a sexy black leather bed, make it a television bed for your viewing pleasure and for a little added spice.

The Fifty Shades look is one that's all about control. Barely restrained control. For instance, a beautiful neutral sofa (in grey, of course) set in a dark room can be given a hint of something more, like a dark red throw that could evoke your very own Red Room. Add handcuffs and whips at your own peril.

Of Moors and Men

Going against the grain.

And now for a completely different tale of passion. In Wuthering Heights, the tale of Heathcliff and his Catherine and their passion played out against the moors of Yorkshire, haunting generations of readers with questions about nature, nurture and love that we're still tangled in today.

If there's a lesson to take from our enduring fascination with Heathcliff, it's that a slice of the wild and mercurial can be unexpectedly beguiling. Bring the wilderness indoors with a sofa that echoes the purple of the heather through which our heroes wander or brood in a dark leather armchair with a nod to another famous Bronte sister in the Rochester armchair - fireplace optional.

We've Got Just the (Golden) Ticket

Tremendous things are in store for you! Wonderful surprises await you.

That first moment of passing through the gates into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory is pure reading pleasure, when the world explodes in colour and inventiveness and Everlasting Gobstoppers.

Echo Willy Wonka's famous jacket with a velvet sofa and pay tribute to his top hat in the form of an unlikely table or stool.

Of course, you could also just go wild with candy colours. Indulge in cheerful, subversive playfulness with carefully crafted cabinets that pop with bright shades in different panels and bright chairs that evoke childhood sweets.

Big Brother is Watching

Dystopian modernism

1984 the year might have come and gone, but 1984 the book will remain in the popular imagination for decades to come. In the world of this chilling tale of a future gone wrong, everyone's houses and lives are the same - use that as a jumping point and break free! Embrace a modern look of the future, but inject strong stylistic accents and look for exclusive individual pieces to add identity.

Think bright, clinical white with chrome details for an extra dose of futuristic style. Or if chrome isn't your style, embrace hard lines and mirrors for the same effect with more warmth.

And while the telescreens of 1984 were both televisions and surveillance, what we have now is all entertainment. So revel in large screen shenanigans with a sleek, modish entertainment centre and the latest in television technology.

The Chronicles of Narnia

Walking through the wardrobe.

It all begins with a wardrobe, and the journey taken through it to a magical land of winter, talking fauns and lions, and a White Witch. Pay tribute to that doorway into Narnia by making room for a beautiful, well-made wardrobe in your living room (you might have to sort out passage to another world on your own, though).

One way to go about it is via the antiques route - many are wonderfully ornate and made from high-quality wood that has lasted through time. If that's not to your taste, you could opt for a classic wardrobe that evokes a magical quality that the books had while offering great storage options.

While the look of the home the Pevensies were staying in was darker and more bare, you could lighten it up with creams and paler shades as well.

Don't forget to add a bit of woodland magic to your home, with pieces that are evocative of the wonder of Narnia such as this cunningly made candleholder in the form of a golden fawn or a majestic leonine painting.


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