40 Incredible Interior Designs That Made These Spaces Feel Magical
I’ll admit it, I used to think interior design was kind of frivolous. Too fancy, too expensive, and not really necessary as long as the couch was comfortable and the TV worked. But then I started seeing spaces like these, and yeah… I get it now.
These interiors don’t just look nice, they completely change how a place feels. The lighting, the textures, the way everything works together can make a room feel calm, inspiring, or straight-up magical.
These incredible designs are the kind that stop you mid-scroll and make you rethink what a space can be when someone really knows what they’re doing.
1. Richly Patterned Maiolica Tiles Crop Up Everywhere In Sicily, But Nowhere In Quite Such Profusion As Pio Mellina’s Open-To-The-Public Apartments In A Historic Palazzo
2. Thucydides Papageorgiou Was In The Process Of Restoring His Childhood Home In Kapesovo, Northwestern Greece, When He Chanced Upon A Swirl Of Colour Beneath The White Plasterwork
3. Anyone Answering The Call Of Nature In Kawakawa, A Town On New Zealand’s North Island, Is In For A Huge Surprise Down At The Public Loos
There they’ll be accosted by wonky floors, forests of totem-like columns, the odd whale relief and a kaleidoscope of tiles.
4. Hidden Behind The Neo-Renaissance Façade Of Monumental Leuven University Library Is An Unexpected 20th-Century Masterpiece
5. Victor Horta’s Home/Studio Near Brussels Pushed Boundaries For What Art Nouveau Could Achieve
6. Britain’s Only Private Train
7. Fashion Editor Grace Coddington Puts Her Famous Cats To Work As Muses For Murals
8. Transplanted To Tangier After Kissing New York Goodbye, Frank De Biasi And Gene Meyer Bought, Fused And Did Up The Place Next To Their Own. It Rocked The Kasbah
9. In The 1950s Vladimir Ossipoff, A Russian Pioneer Of Hawaiian Modernism, Built A Mountain Cabin On The Island Of O‘Ahu
10. Like A Cluster Of Daleks, The Curvaceous-Cum-Spiky Live/Work Home Created By The Late Carlos Páez Vilaró In 1980s Argentina Might As Well Be Life On Mars
11. This Virtually Untouched Gem Of A 1930s Hunting Lodge Outside Paris By The Designer And Architect Pierre Petit Is Complete With Original Furnishings And Decoration
In this Art Deco Gesamtkunstwerk all the creative disciplines unite to spectacular effect.
12. The Blossom-Bright Home In Kent
13. 17th-Century Riverine Flat In Paris
14. Parham House Put To Use Its 17th-Century Needlework Collection With Great Effect, Inspiring Planting Schemes And Even A Modern Maze
Plus, keeping with a tradition established in the 1920s, 30 buckets of flowers are cut from the garden and grounds each week, filling the house with arrangements – all based on the embroideries around them.
15. Never Let It Be Said That Pakistan’s Truck Drivers Lack Imagination Or Vision
They’ve got them both by the lorry load, commissioning highly skilled phool patti artists to turn their cabs into prettified pads.
16. Some 20,000 Books – In Niches, Stacked On A Saarinen Table, And Steeply Shelved
1902 Milan flat of editore Massimo Vitta Zelman, one of Italy’s top publishers of art books and catalogues.
17. Houses Don’t Get Any More Opulent Than Otto Wagner’s Storied Villa In Vienna
18. Built In Agde, France, By An Unlikely Heir With A Taste For Opium And An ‘Ultimately Fatal Genius’
Château Laurens drew for its inspiration from sources as diverse as Egyptian architecture, ancient Greek symbolism and Silk Road caravanserai. This surreal temple of dreams, recently restored and reopened to the public, would be at home in a tale spun by Scheherazade…
19. The Architect Anders Annerstedt And Designer Katarina Abrahamsson Created A Temple To Mid-Century Modernism, Furnished With Vintage Pieces By Pioneers Josef Frank, Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen And Gae Aulenti
20. Wicker Is Having A Moment Again. Just Like The Pliable Organic Fibres That Form It, The Craft Always Bounces Back
21. In His Bethnal Green Flat, A Former Yoga Studio, Artist Enrico David Uses The Human Body As A Vehicle For Mental Contortions In A Range Of Media
22. Milkman Ruurd Wiersma Spent Five Years Decorating The Walls Of His Modest House In Burdaard
23. White Grapes Hang From The Kitchen Ceiling At This Ancient Monastery Orchard In The High Tiber Valley
Until February, when Isabella dalla Ragione presses them to make 50 litres of vin santo. She has spent over 40 years searching convents, family estates and abandoned farms for forgotten species of tree, bringing many back from the brink of extinction.
24. Lucie De Moyencourt’s South African Home Is A Gleaming Pearl In The Table Mountain Terrain
The artist’s home is a nautical grotto and a muse for her ever-growing shop, Shellegance.
25. Fresh From Designing A Mega-Gallery, Argentinian Architect Luis Laplace Landed The Revamp Of A Small-Fry Fisherman’s Villa In Mahón, Menorca’s Sailboat-Filled Main Port
From the ‘old village’ green tones to the rustic redwork trim pinned on the shelves, Villa Pepita sings of it’s modest origins.
26. Tim Walker’s Canal-Side Cottage – Formerly A Buddhist Commune – Is Filled With All Manner Of Items Picked Up On His Many Work Expeditions
The place feels ‘like a sanctuary with the most incredible energy’, says Vogue’s star photographer.
27. This Late 1950s Apartment In Milan Remains Remarkably Untouched Since The Day It Was Designed
28. One Of Italy’s Most Soulful, Off-The-Beaten-Track Retreats
Stranded in a hilltop settlement in Tuscany during lockdown, Johnny and Elizabeth Petrucci lured a sequestered family home back to life.
29. Traditionally Executed By Married Women, These ‘Bridal Chamber’ Comb Paintings Are Created By Scraping Away A Top Layer Of White Kaolin To Reveal The Black Manganese Beneath
Every June, in the tribal villages of Hazaribagh, northeast India, the heavy rains come, washing away the vernacular Khovar designs adorning mud-hut walls. Somehow, their fleeting nature makes them all the more precious.
30. Wall After Wall Of Intricate Mural Decoration
Folk-art aficionados will be humming with excitement at what the artist and honeybee guardian, Karina Czudnochowski, has achieved in her home.
31. In An Area That’s Long Attracted The Cream Of Cairo, Photographic Agent George Lang Is Sitting Pretty In The Immobilia Building, A Landmark Familiar To All Citizens
Filling his lofty flat with antiques bought locally has been a culturally enriching adventure for the Australian émigré.
32. A Vast Rattan Light Shade That @_nadinejohnson_ Found In Venice When She Was At The Biennale Spreads Baldachin-Like Over The Bed In Her New York Apartment
The blue-and-white lamp, a memento from her mother’s home in Belgium, sits on the bedside table. Next to it is a 1960s ‘Les Arcs’ chair, designed by Charlotte Perriand.
33. Design Studio Casa Josephine’s Has Turned This Investor’s Flat In Madrid From ‘Empty Box’ Into Treasure Chest
Design studio Casa Josephine’s use of rare materials, from onyx to travertine, has turned this investor’s flat in Madrid from ‘empty box’ into treasure chest.
34. Painter Jean Messagier And His Wife, The Ceramicist Marcelle Baumann, Found A Retreat From Frenetic Mid-Century Paris
35. ‘Step Inside The Vienna Stage. You Might Call It A Gesamtkunstwerk,’ Says Ballet Costume Designer Susanne Bisovsky Of Her Cosmopolitan Atelier
36. She’s Ensured Something To Nourish The Soul Is Woven Into Every Room
37. Mayan And Hispanic Cultures Collide In This 17th-Century Church In Mexico
38. Having Relocated To Bulgaria Over 20 Years Ago, Tim Clinch Has Grown To Love Its Quieter Pace Of Life
39. Since Moving To Margate, Nicholas Cullinan And Mattias Vendelmans Have Been Seeing Quite A Lot Of The Skies That Drew Turner To The Resort
40. In The Early 1970s, This 16th-Century Castle In The Netherlands Was On The Point Of Dereliction
