“20,000 Books”: 80 Interior Designs So Striking They Don’t Feel Real

All these interiors are absolutely gorgeous. What a relief after scrolling through yet another gray minimalist apartment with nothing on the walls.

You know the type: beige everything, white countertops, maybe one sad plant in the corner. They’re practical enough, but they have about as much personality as a dentist’s waiting room.

Sure, the minimalist aesthetic can be interesting in its own right. But people have been decorating their living spaces for as long as we’ve had them, and that says something.

Cave dwellers painted their walls some 20,000 years ago, turning cold stone into something more personal. Even animals do this. Birds don’t just throw together any old nest. They weave and carefully arrange their small homes to suit their needs.

That instinct to make a space truly yours has been with us forever, and there’s something beautiful about that.

Back in the day, this wasn't called interior design just yet. But beyond primitive cave paintings, people found plenty of ways to express themselves through their homes.

Pueblo Indians used abstract patterns on their pottery. Wooden stools often featured ornamental carvings. Basketwork, wooden vessels, textiles—all these things gradually emerged as people made their spaces more livable.

Fast forward to Ancient Egypt, and things really started getting interesting. The wealthy inhabited large estates with gardens and decorated interiors. Bold colors like blue, gold, and red symbolized life, wealth, and power in their homes. Pharaohs often slept in beds made from gold, with detailed headboards and footboards scattered with twinkling stones.

Meanwhile, ordinary Egyptian homes were sparsely furnished with simple and functional pieces, the most common being a three or four legged low stool. Your furniture told everyone exactly where you stood in society.

Then came the Middle Ages, and everything got pretty bleak. The era featured somber wood paneling, minimal furnishings, and stone-slab flooring. Even wealthy people kept things dark. War and the church had a way of making interior decorating feel frivolous.

But Europeans eventually shook that off. Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, the French Renaissance sparked a renewed focus on art and creativity in interior design. Color came back. Beauty became acceptable again. People started caring about how their homes actually looked.

Jumping ahead to the Victorian era (1837-1901), things got pretty extravagant. The Industrial Revolution meant furniture, art, and decorative objects were suddenly accessible to common people. Middle-class families could finally afford to decorate, and they embraced it fully.

People filled living spaces with beautiful objects, wall art, shelves of trinkets, and furniture. Designers used and modified many styles from various time periods like Gothic, Tudor, Elizabethan, English Rococo, and Neoclassical. More was always more.