Michael Mansvelt is a landscaper and home and interior designer, based in Aotearoa. In this luxurious hardback he shares insights from his career, showing how touches of opulence can transform our homes and gardens. This gorgeous, lavish book has something for everyone, from more minimal designs to the eclectic, showing a range of inspirational homes and gardens that will inspire.
The first thing to enjoy is the stunning French-fold jacket, and the tactile navy embossed fabric hardback underneath, the book opulent like its title. But when you open the pages, the wonder continues, from the well-considered endpapers, through to the attractive design and the exceptional photography. I wanted to linger on every spread and soak up all the details.
Michael shares his four principles for enduring design – love, structure, empathy and fun - and reading Michael’s excellent introduction sets the reader up to appreciate the rest of the homes and gardens featured. They are all gorgeous in completely different ways, so I enjoyed the different spaces, whether they are an apartment in the heart of a city, or a holiday home near Lake Taupo, or a private family paradise. What is consistent in the different homes is the harmony between the indoor and the outdoor, the manmade and the natural.
‘Interiors are a lot like people, we tend to gravitate towards the ones that don’t take themselves too seriously,’ Michael writes in his introduction.
Everyday Opulence puts this into practice well, and it succeeds in being playful, opulent, breathtakingly beautiful and good for the soul.
Reviewer: Karen McMillan
Bateman Books