Interior Design E-books for UK Homeowners
The Studio Akiva Guides
Nine practical handbooks on designing, renovating and living well in a home. Specific, tested and honest, including the places where the popular advice does not hold up.
Most homes are full of pieces people genuinely like, arranged in a way that doesn't quite work. This guide is the other half of that: where things actually go.
Twenty-nine specific measurements, from the 145cm artwork centre height to the 40cm gap between a sofa and a coffee table, drawn across eight diagrams that show correct placement against the mistake most people make. Six rooms covered in full, plus chapters on artwork, shelves, rugs and lighting.
Nothing in it depends on buying anything new.
Inside: the six principles behind every room, living room, bedroom, kitchen and dining, entrance hall, home office, bathroom, artwork and wall composition, shelves and surfaces, rugs, lighting, seasonal restyling, a quick-reference table of every measurement, fifteen common mistakes, and a tick-box checklist per room.
Downloads immediately after purchase. Designed to be read on screen or printed at A4.
Not every pound spent comes back. Some renovation money returns more than it cost, some returns most of it, and some is simply spent. Knowing which is which before you commit is the entire subject of this guide.
Maximising Your Renovation Investment is a 36-page illustrated handbook from award-winning London studio Akiva. It gives you honest figures rather than encouraging ones, including the places where the popular claims do not survive contact with the research.
It opens with the distinction almost nobody makes before they start: the difference between work that adds value, work that adds saleability, and work that simply makes a house better to live in. All three are legitimate reasons to spend. Confusing them is how people end up disappointed.
Then the two ideas that matter more than any list of improvements. Value is set by comparison, not by cost, which is why your invoices are irrelevant to a valuer. And every street has a ceiling price above which buyers will not go, whatever you do to the house. There is a fifteen minute exercise here, using publicly available sold price data, that tells you the maximum your work could ever add before you commit a penny.
After that: an honest ranking of returns with the caveats the headlines leave out, which kind of added space actually counts and what makes a loft room a bedroom rather than an attic, kitchens and bathrooms and why recovery falls sharply as spend rises, first impressions, and the works that actively reduce what a property is worth.
The energy efficiency chapter is the one most likely to change how you spend.
UK edition: it works through Nationwide's analysis of owner-occupied sales, which found a far more modest premium for high EPC ratings than most homeowners expect, alongside a clear penalty for the worst rated homes and a much larger premium in buy-to-let.
It finishes with costing and funding, the difference between renovating to sell and renovating to live, and how to evidence the value you create so that a buyer's solicitor cannot discount it.
A note on what this is: we are interior designers, not valuers or financial advisers, and nothing here is financial advice. Every figure is a typical range drawn from published research, given so you can sanity-check a proposal rather than forecast your own outcome.
Format: PDF, 36 pages, A4. Instant download after purchase. Read on any device or print at home.
Most renovations do not fail on the building work. They fail on decisions made late, money tracked loosely, and expectations nobody wrote down. The bricklaying is usually fine. The managing is where projects come apart.
Renovation Project Management is a 36-page illustrated handbook from award-winning London studio Akiva, written for homeowners rather than professionals. It assumes you have a job to hold down while all this is happening, and that nobody has ever explained how a building project is actually shaped.
It starts with the scope, because everything downstream inherits its clarity, and shows you how to write one a builder can price without phoning to ask what you meant. Then choosing a team, reading a quote properly, and the conversation that tells you more than any reference. Then contracts: what the document must state, how retention works, how to pay safely, and what insurance to verify before anyone starts.
UK edition: Written around JCT Home Owner contracts, CDM 2015 domestic client duties, the Party Wall Act and building control inspections, with prices in pounds.
The middle chapters are about running a live project: the critical path and the lead times that quietly wreck programmes, a five-column money sheet that catches overruns while you still have options, and the four habits that prevent most renovation misery. A weekly meeting. A written summary. A decision log. Variations priced before the work happens.
There are also the chapters nobody writes. Living on site, and how to decide whether to. The low point in the middle that everyone hits and nobody warns you about. Neighbours. And what to actually do when a project is going seriously wrong, including the three kinds of delay and who properly carries each one.
It finishes with snagging done properly, the handover pack to insist on, and what to do in the first year so the work ages well and the eventual sale is straightforward.
Format: PDF, 36 pages, A4. Instant download after purchase. Read on any device or print at home.
Colour reaches people before anything else in a room. Before the furniture, before the layout, before they have consciously registered anything at all. Which is why getting it wrong is so expensive, and getting it right feels like the room was always meant to look that way.
Harnessing Colour is a 36-page illustrated guide from award-winning London studio Akiva. It is not a list of nice shades. It is a method.
You will learn what colour is actually made of, and why hue, the dimension everyone talks about, is the least powerful of the three. You will learn to read Light Reflectance Value, the most useful number in decorating and the one hiding in the small print of every colour card. You will learn why your perfect white looks dirty next to the sofa, and the three ways to find an undertone before it ruins a scheme.
There is a chapter on what the research into colour and mood genuinely supports, and where popular advice runs well past the evidence. Saturation drives arousal more than hue does. Very dark rooms raise heart rate rather than lowering it. These are useful things to know before you paint a bedroom black.
Then the practical half: north, south, east and west-facing rooms and what each does to a colour, room by room guidance, using value to lower a ceiling or shorten a corridor, the full sheen scale from matt to gloss, colour drenching and feature walls that actually work, what dates and what lasts, and a sample board method that takes an evening and prevents a weekend of repainting.
Every chapter ends with something you can act on: comparison tables, checklists, worked palettes and a printable Palette Planner with space for LRV, undertone, finishes and a testing log.
Format: PDF, 36 pages, A4. Instant download after purchase. Read on any device or print at home.
One edition: Colour behaves the same everywhere, so unlike our renovation guides there is no separate UK and EU version. The orientation guidance is written for the northern hemisphere and simply reverses below the equator.
Rooms should fit the people in them, not the other way around. Yet most homes ask their occupants to stoop at the worktop, perch on the sofa, squint at the screen and edge past the dining chairs, and everyone simply adapts until the discomfort becomes invisible.
Ergonomics in Interior Design is a 36-page illustrated guide from award-winning London studio Akiva. It gathers the dimensions that matter for a home, explains where they come from, and shows you how to apply them room by room.
It starts with why standard sizes exist and where they fail. Most furniture is built for roughly the 5th to 95th percentile, which means about one person in ten is poorly served, and because nobody sits at the same percentile for every measurement, a chair that fits most people on seat height can still fail them on depth. From that follows the rule the whole guide runs on: design clearances for the largest user and reach for the smallest.
Then six measurements you can take of your own household in ten minutes, which will change what you specify. Elbow height determines nearly every work surface in the house. Buttock to popliteal length decides whether a sofa supports your back or defeats it.
After that it is room by room, with over thirty dimension tables. Why kitchen worktops should be set from an elbow rather than a catalogue, and why sinks should sit higher than the rest of the run. Desk and screen heights, the laptop problem, and what to do when your desk is actually a dining table. Seating that lets your feet reach the floor. Bathroom heights, bedroom clearances, stair consistency and door widths. Light levels by task, and how much more light a person needs at sixty than at twenty.
The final chapter is a weekend audit of your own home, with a tape measure and this guide, sorted into free fixes, small purchases and the handful of things only possible at build stage. Most of what you find will cost nothing.
One edition: Human bodies are the same everywhere, so unlike our renovation guides there is no separate UK and EU version. All dimensions are metric.
Format: PDF, 36 pages, A4. Instant download after purchase. Read on any device or print at home.
Most furniture mistakes are timing mistakes. The piece was right and the room was right; what went wrong was when it was ordered, or what was left in the budget by the time it came to buy it.
This is the guide to the two things nobody enjoys planning and everybody regrets skipping. Real lead times for every category, from stock upholstery at one to two weeks to bespoke joinery at twelve. The budget split designers actually work to, and why spreading money evenly produces a room that reads as unfinished. The seven-phase order of works, and the point in a building programme at which each thing has to be ordered so it arrives after the decorators rather than into a building site.
It also covers the mistake that costs most and is entirely preventable: measuring the room but not the route to it. Roughly one in eight UK deliveries fails on first attempt, and access is the leading cause.
36 pages, 11 chapters, with a quick reference page collecting every figure in the guide and two printable worksheets to plan your own budget and ordering dates.
A bathroom is the only room where water, electricity, ventilation and drainage all meet in about four square metres, and where a small mistake stays hidden behind tile until it becomes an expensive one.
The Bathroom Renovation Guide is a 36-page illustrated handbook from award-winning London studio Akiva. It follows the job in the order it actually happens, so you know what has to be decided before the walls close.
It starts with the seven things to establish before you buy anything: where the soil stack is, what the floor is made of, your water system and measured flow rate, the ceiling void, existing ventilation and what is hiding behind the current tiles. Then budget and programme, with a realistic stage-by-stage timeline and the reasons bathrooms overrun.
The technical core is where this guide earns its place. Layout clearances in centimetres. Combi, unvented and gravity systems compared, and how to match a shower to your actual flow rate rather than the brochure. Waterproofing explained properly, including floor falls, substrates and the single-manufacturer rule that prevents most failures. Electrical zones and IP ratings. Extract rates, duct runs and fan overrun.
UK edition: Written around the Building Regulations, BS 7671 Section 701 bathroom zones, and Approved Documents F and G, with prices in pounds.
Then the enjoyable part: tiles and stone compared, sanitaryware and brassware and what is genuinely worth paying for, lighting that flatters a face rather than shadowing it, small bathroom and en-suite strategy, and a final chapter on snagging, care, and what fails first in a bathroom and why.
Every chapter ends with something you can act on, including a full snagging checklist and a printable Bathroom Planner that your plumber, tiler and electrician will all want to see.
Format: PDF, 36 pages, A4. Instant download after purchase. Read on any device or print at home.
Every home you have ever admired got that way the same way: through a sequence of good decisions made in the right order. This handbook gives you that sequence.
The Interior Design Handbook is a 36-page illustrated guide from award-winning London studio Akiva. It covers the full arc of a project across eleven chapters: defining what you actually want, setting a budget that survives contact with reality, choosing and managing the right professionals, planning layouts that flow, and layering colour, light, texture and furniture into rooms that feel inevitable.
It is specific where most advice is vague. Ninety centimetres for a main walkway. Ten per cent contingency, fifteen for an older property. Two thirds of the sofa's length for a coffee table. Seventy-five to ninety centimetres above the table for a pendant. Warm white at 2700K for every living space. The numbers you need are here, in tables you will come back to.
There are also the chapters most guides skip: sustainable and healthy material choices, smart home technology worth wiring in, and universal design that quietly future-proofs a home for every age and ability.
UK edition: Written around UK building regulations, building control, party wall agreements and planning permission, with prices in pounds.
Every chapter ends with something you can act on: comparison tables, checklists, a clearances reference and a printable Project Planner that pulls the whole scheme onto a single sheet.
Whether you are refreshing one room or renovating a whole house, the process is the same, and it is entirely learnable.
Format: PDF, 36 pages, A4. Instant download after purchase. Read on any device or print at home.
What's inside
01. Vision & Style: Know What You Want — the one-page brief, mood boards that actually decide things, whole-home coherence 02. The Budget That Holds — five buckets, real contingency, where to spend and where to save, phasing when funds are short 03. Your Design Team & Structural Work — who does what, how to choose them, permissions, running the project 04. Space Planning & Layout — the clearances that make rooms work, focal points, zoning open plan, traffic routes 05. Colour, Texture & Materiality — the 60-30-10 rule, a 2026 palette, undertones, texture as the depth dial 06. Lighting Design — three layers, colour temperature, room by room, daylight as a material 07. Materials & Finishes — flooring compared, worktops and wet zones, paint finishes, mixing metals and woods 08. Furniture & Furnishings — scale, buying the sit not the picture, a sizing cheat sheet for every room 09. Sustainable & Healthy Homes — materials with a conscience, the invisible energy renovation, indoor air quality 10. Smart Home Technology — what is worth wiring in, choosing a system that lasts, keeping it invisible 11. Accessibility & Universal Design — designing for a whole life, kitchens and bathrooms, contrast and wayfinding Plus: the printable Project Planner worksheet
Our child's bedroom has more work to do than any other room in the house. It is where they sleep, play, make a mess, do their homework, hide from the world and slowly become themselves. This guide shows you how to design a room that does all of it well, and keeps doing it as they grow.
Creative Kids' Room Design is a 36-page illustrated handbook from award-winning London studio Akiva. It takes you from first idea to finished room across eleven chapters: zoning a space for play, choosing a palette that helps children settle, planning a room age by age from nursery to teenage retreat, buying furniture that survives being climbed on, layering light for play, study and sleep, and making the room genuinely safe.
There are chapters most guides skip. How to make a box room or a shared room work. How to design for a child who feels the world at full volume. How to build a study zone that gets used. How to do all of it on a sensible budget, with second-hand finds and a paint brush.
UK edition: Safety guidance is written to UK standards throughout, including BS EN 13120 for blind cords, BS EN 716 for cots and BS EN 747 for bunk and high beds.
Every chapter ends with something you can act on: checklists, comparison tables, a 15-minute safety audit and a printable Room Planner worksheet that pulls your whole scheme onto a single sheet.
Written for real families with real budgets. No jargon, no styling that falls apart the moment a child actually uses the room.
Format: PDF, 36 pages, A4. Instant download after purchase. Read on any device or print at home.
One system, nine subjects.
Each volume follows the same structure: eleven chapters, thirty-six pages, and every chapter ending in something you can act on.
Numbers, not vibes
Clearances in centimetres, contingency percentages, extract rates, colour temperatures and lead times. The figures you need to check a quote or brief a trade.
Written to real standards
Where regulations apply we cite them properly, and the UK and EU editions reference the standards that actually apply where you live.
Checklists and worksheets
Every chapter ends in something usable, and every guide finishes with a printable planner that puts the whole project on one sheet.
Honest about limits
Where the evidence is mixed we say so, and where popular claims run past the research we say that too. It is more useful than confidence.
What do I actually get?
A PDF, 36 pages, A4. A download link arrives by email straight after checkout. Read it on any device or print it at home. There is no subscription and no account to create.
Why are some guides UK and EU and others not?
Five of the seven deal with regulations, contracts or currency, so those have separate UK and EU editions citing the right standards. Colour and Ergonomics do not, because colour behaves the same everywhere and so do human bodies. Those two are single editions.
Are these written by a designer?
Yes. They are written by Studio Akiva, an award-winning London interior design studio, drawing on current published research and standards as well as our own project experience. Where we cite a figure, it comes from named research or a published standard.
Which one should I start with?
Use the selector above. If you are at the very beginning of a project, Vol. 01 then Vol. 02 is the usual route. If you are furnishing rather than building, Vol. 06 and Vol. 03.
Can I print them?
Yes. They are designed at A4 and several chapters end in worksheets and checklists intended to be printed, filled in and pinned up.
Would you rather we did it?
Studio Akiva is an award-winning London interior design studio and a twelve-time Houzz award winner. If you would like your project designed, drawn or simply talked through, book a free fifteen-minute discovery call.