There are hundreds of ways to decorate the walls and floors of your home, and choosing the right materials can be challenging for even the most creative thinkers. What you need is someone to take you by the hand and lead you through all the options, as if you were in a design showroom together. Enter Materials, a handy guidebook that’s the next best thing to having an interior designer at your side.

This informative book covers the full range of decorative possibilities for walls and floors, whether the effect you’re seeking is traditional or contemporary, subtle or eye-catching, luxurious or down-to-earth. Chapters devoted to wood, stone, tile, metal, plaster, concrete, paint, wallpaper, linoleum, and carpets provide everything you need to know to select, buy, and install each type of material, including pros and cons, relative cost, and durability.

Hundreds of beautiful color photographs present clever ideas to help you conceal design flaws, modernize or spruce up a room, or entirely transform the look of your home—and to express your personal sensibility while you’re at it. Overflowing with advice and inspiration, Materials is an invitation to use color, texture, and pattern to create the living space that suits you best.