In her debut book, Room Recipes: A Creative and Stylish Guide to Interior Design, Tonya Olsen approaches designing a room like a cook preparing a meal. With a general vision in mind, the right ingredients, and a bit of your own personal garnish, you can successfully arrange and decorate a beautiful living space.
Click through to check out our full review, learn a little more about the author, and read an interview with Tonya herself.
The Book
Room Recipes opens with an introduction from Tonya and some words of advice. In the introduction, she explains how she came to be writing a book about interior design and outlines how the book is organized. As the name suggests, she wanted to format Room Recipes much like a cookbook.
The Words of Advice section offers general suggestions and practical tips for approaching interior design, including a list of common tools you should keep on hand.
In the table of contents, you may have noticed that Tonya did not categorize the rooms she features by type – living room, bedroom, kitchen, and so on – but by function. This is because she realizes that not all living spaces are created equal. A room may serve a certain purpose for your family, but it may not fit neatly into a specific label.
The sections she lists in the main table of contents are “Welcome,” “Live,” “Eat,” “Sleep,” “Work,” and “Wash.” Each section also features its own table of contents, which gives a thumbnail snapshot of each space as a preview.
From here, each living space follows a similar structure. The first page introduces the homeowner, designer, and any additional assistants or photographers. A quick blurb and a color palette give you an idea of the finished space you are about to see.
Next, you are treated to several photos of the final design from different perspectives. Some designs even feature a “before” photo of a previously empty or ill-furnished room. Next, Tonya breaks down each room into the different pieces that compose it. On the left of the page is a numbered list, and on the right is a cluster of photos with corresponding numbers in the corners. Most pages also have accessories pictured along the bottom.
Tonya gives interior design suggestions based on conclusions she draws from the design scheme of the room. Instead of insisting you replicate the room itself, she takes what factors make the design successful and turns them into general advice for your own home. Then, at the end, she provides a “Garnish,” which highlights creative suggestions or DIY projects pulled from the space.
The book closes with a very useful appendix. It features some fun behind the scenes photos, sources of inspiration, shopping resources, her personal acknowledgements, photographers and other contributors, a paint color index, and a topic index.
My Ratings
Introduction & Palette [3/5]
The introductory pages serve to credit the designers, as well as give you a tease for the space you are about to peruse. Some of the color palettes were entirely accurate so you knew just what to expect. However, other swatches were a bit deceptive. They did not give the right vibe for the space, and they often did not include accent colors, just the base.
Though some palettes could have been better executed, this is a very clever idea. Designers often start with certain colors or patterns and use them as a jumping off point for the direction they want to go when decorating a space. Realizing this and including this was good on Tonya’s part.
Ingredients [4/5]
Each piece of the puzzle was clearly labeled and its purpose in the overall design explained. My only nitpick is that sometimes the accessories portions did not display photos of all the things they highlighted, or did not arrange them in the order they were mentioned. Otherwise, these pages were very well done and probably my favorite part of each section.
Room Recipe [5/5]
Tonya’s tips are super easy to understand and general enough to apply toward any redecoration project you want to pursue in your own home. She writes in a highly accessible style that is more concerned with being helpful and practical than promoting pricey renovations or products.
Garnish [4/5]
Any DIY project she writes about is extremely easy to follow and also mindful of costs you may incur. Unlike many design or DIY blogs you may see, she does not include photos of each step, but that was probably due to space constraints and wanting each project to fit on one page.
My Review
It is easy for an average person to say “this room looks good,” even though they aren’t quite sure why, but Tonya plainly deconstructs each space into its individual components and explains what each one contributes. There is no insistence that you should create something wholly similar in your home, but rather that these spaces could provide inspiration for small touches or ideas you could realistically execute.
Tonya reminds you that you can create a beautiful space that is uniquely yours on a budget. She doesn’t shy away from recommending thrifting, inexpensive alternatives, upcycling, and repurposing. This unpretentious and genuine approach is so refreshing.
One of my favorite things about Room Recipes is the gorgeous, sumptuous details which are given careful attention in each space. This book truly is a feast for the eyes as well as the imagination. Even though a few of the designs may be a little too whimsical for the average homeowner, they can still get the wheels in your brain turning and generate ideas for future decorating endeavors.
An Interview with Tonya
The first post on your blog hints that originally it went by a different name. What was that name? Why did you decide to change it to Room Recipes?
The original name for my blog was called Spruce Hill, based on the fact that my dad grew up in a community called Spruce Hill. Over time, however, I ended up opening my store, LIV Showroom. On behalf of my store, I appear on local morning shows to discuss interior design. A local publisher saw one of my episodes and contacted me about writing a book. I came up with the concept for Room Recipes because I was interested in teaching others about interior design and I thought a recipe book was a great format to follow. I changed the name of my blog to follow the release of my book.
What inspired you to found the LIV Showroom? What sets it apart from other interior design firms?
I’ve always wanted to open my own business. It was really quite coincidental how the store came about. I noticed a new business going in on the corner of Main Street in our home town, and I stopped by one day to see what it was. To my surprise, it was going to be an interior design firm and furniture store! I was so excited! I started talking to the woman opening the store, my now business partner, Deboni Sacre, and told her how I’d always wanted to open my own store. She mentioned to me that she was actually looking for a business partner because her previous partner had backed out. One thing led to another and a few weeks later I was her business partner, and my dream of opening my own store became a reality.
While we offer great design and exceptional products, we pride ourselves on being approachable. Even I feel intimated by certain interior designers! We want our customers to feel comfortable to stop by, hang out, and ask us anything they want about design with feeling embarrassed about not knowing something. We develop personal relationships with our clients. I personally prefer to empower the client to make great design choices rather than to tell them what to do or to impose my designs upon them.
Describe the process of putting together your book. What would you say was the most challenging part? What was the most enjoyable?
There were several challenges in writing this book, mainly that I’d never done one before so I wasn’t sure what I was doing! I also only had three months to determine the format, pull all the projects together, photograph and edit everything, and write the copy. It was a whirlwind! In hindsight, I can see all the things I would have done different/better, but it was a great learning experience. I loved seeing the finished rooms and it was fun to break down all the design aspects of each space. There are so many small details that go into pulling a great space together.
How did you decide which spaces to include?
Because of the limited amount of time I had to pull it together, I wasn’t able to pick and choose the spaces as I would have liked to. Initially I only wanted to feature the designs that myself or the designers from my store had personally been involved in. Since that wasn’t feasible, I decided to add designs from some of my favorite designers including Robert McArthur and Kara Paslay.
Which spaces (aside from those in your own home, of course) would you say are your favorites?
Robert McArthur is one of my personal favorites. I’ve had Robert design two custom homes for my family, and we’ve lived in another home he designed. I stumbled across Kara Paslay by accident and I was thrilled that she agreed to be in my book! Plus, she happens to be from Oklahoma, where I’m originally from, so that was a bonus! Both designers are very eclectic and original in their approach to design, which is most like my personal style. It’s always an experience to step into one of the spaces they’ve designed.
Do you see yourself publishing more books in the future? If so, what would they be about?
I’ve recently signed another contract to write my next book. It’s going to be called Sacred Spaces. It’s about making our homes and environments sacred, special and personal. I’ve also proposed another book concept (the working title is The United States of Decorating) about the evolution and various styles of interior design throughout the United States. I think it’s so interesting how styles and tastes vary from region to region and state to state.
About the Author
Tonya Olsen earned her master’s degree in interior design. She is currently employed as an interior designer for Rainey Homes, a Utah homebuilder, and recently she and a few other women opened an interior design firm and retail showroom called LIV Showroom. She is an outspoken advocate for DIY decorating and finding inexpensive solutions for expensive design ideas.
She has been blogging since September 2010. Then, in December 2012, she was approached by a publisher, who proposed that she write an interior design book – with a turnaround time of only three months. Though this made her life fairly hectic for a while, Tonya was up to the challenge. Room Recipes: A Creative and Stylish Guide to Interior Design was released in September 2013. The book can be purchased through Amazon.
Tonya lives with her husband and their three boys in Bountiful, Utah. Her husband is also a published author, having already written and released two memoirs.
Disclosure: I was provided a digital copy of the book to review, but the thoughts and opinions expressed are 100% my own.