The Most Inspiring Coffee Table Book (And Inspiration For My Bathroom Walls)

I don’t think I’ve ever done a book review on my blog, or if I have, it was many years ago. But I recently bought a coffee table book that I find so inspiring that I wanted to pass it along to you. It’s called The Art Of Anthropologie. Anthropologie, as in, the retail store.

I’m sure all of you are familiar with Anthropologie. They sell clothing, housewares, decor, furniture, etc. But they’re also known for their very artistic and creative window and in-store displays.

I don’t think I’ve ever actually purchased anything from Anthropologie, although I came very close to buying one of their wallpaper murals at one time. (I think I didn’t buy it because it wasn’t the right size.) But I could look at their window displays all day long and never get bored.

I learned about this book because I follow Elizabeth Dunn on Instagram, and she works as an Anthropologie Display Coordinator. I think I spent at least an hour poring over her Instagram account one day, watching all of her videos showing the creation process, and studying all of the beautiful pictures.

Anyway, if you’re a creative person who loves color, pattern, texture, art installations, etc., I think you’ll find this book to be chock full of inspiration.

There’s inspiration in there for just about every medium you could imagine — paint, paper, paper mâché, textiles, and on, and on. And on some of them, the book contains instructions for how to create the item.

The whole thing is filled to the brim with eye candy. This display made of corks is one of my favorites.

Here’s a closer look at a similar display…

I’ve gotten so many ideas from this book for art that I’d like to create. And as soon as my studio is functional (i.e., has storage and everything is put in its place), I hope to give some of these ideas a try.

As I was looking through the book, I came upon inspiration for the studio bathroom walls. I’ve decided to keep the wallpaper in the studio, but I will be making some tweaks to it to fix the things that bother me about it. (More on that later.)

When I did the studio bathroom, I used colors from that wallpaper and created a crazy, vibrant design on the walls.

That was a fun project, and I’m glad I did it. It’s been fun to live with that colorful, crazy bathroom for the last three-and-a-half years, but I’m ready for a change. Someone ruined it for me when she said the walls looked like the LuLaRoe logo.

And then I further ruined it for myself when I watched LuLaRich on Amazon Prime. Ugh…how are they still in business?

Anyway, ever since being told that my walls looked like the LuLaRoe logo, and then seeing that documentary, I haven’t been able to get that out of my mind. So it’s time for a change.

When I came across this picture, the backdrop of this Anthropologie display, my immediate thought was, “That would look great on a wall!” I love the fade from the darker color on the bottom to the lighter color on top, and the way it’s done adds so much interest without being overwhelming.

So I’m champing at the bit to get in there and make some changes, including trying my hand at this wall design for those bathroom walls.

But back to the book, I highly recommend it if you are an artsy kind of person, or just like looking at artsy things (or know someone who does). It’s available at Anthropologie ($65), at Amazon ($65), and most major book retailers. But the cheapest price I found was at WalMart ($49.22 with free shipping). It looks like they have very limited stock, though.