Our coloring book has been available for a few months, and we realized we haven’t shared much about how it was made. We hadn’t expected to create a coloring book, so being part of the process was a surprising and fun experience.
In case you missed earlier posts, Color at Home is an 80-page adult coloring book that includes full-room illustrations, decorated vignettes, design mood boards, frameable art prints, and curated collections of pillows, chairs, and lighting. It’s priced at $12.99, and retailers often have it for less (a great stocking stuffer). We’ve shared peeks here and there, and people have posted their finished pages on Instagram under the hashtag #YHLColoringBook. We’re especially amused by the gold fridge — very Snoop Dogg.
A small publishing team — the husband-and-wife duo at Paige Tate & Co — approached us with the idea, and we realized a coloring book could be a low-risk way for people to experiment with color and decor choices without repainting walls or buying new furniture. Coloring can help overcome paint paralysis: you can try new color combinations and decorating schemes on paper before committing to them in your home. It’s also a relaxing, creative break where you can spend time on pretty rooms you don’t have to clean.
Since we didn’t create the line drawings ourselves, we worked with interiors illustrator Joan Borawski, who was wonderful to collaborate with. Our contribution, beyond a few written bits like color tips and warm-up exercises, was primarily art direction. We planned the book’s structure and flow: how many rooms, vignettes, mood boards, quotes, botanicals, collections, and exercises to include. To manage everything we created a master document that mapped out all 80 pages and exchanged revisions and notes with Joan throughout the process.
Sometimes we provided mood boards or collages of accessories for Joan to render into a room. Other times we started from a photo — occasionally one from our own home — so some spaces in the book may look familiar. For example, a dining room spread began from a photo that’s an alternate view of a dining room featured in our second book.
We learned quickly that a photo doesn’t always translate well into an engaging black-and-white illustration; some scenes became too busy when converted, while others lost interest without color. For photos we liked, we supplied a marked-up second version with notes for Joan about what to change. Below is an example of one of those annotated images.
Joan often sent rough sketches before adding final details like rug patterns so we could assess composition, balance, and areas that needed simplifying or enriching. Seeing the rooms develop from rough to finished was fascinating.
On early pages we discovered practical issues: intricate sconces or heavily patterned art can be hard to color, and large blank walls or ceilings can look uninteresting. Small details—like a centered flower arrangement or chandelier—might be lost in the book’s binding, so we adjusted compositions accordingly. We marked up the rough drafts and sent notes back to Joan for further edits.
Joan then returned updated versions. It’s incredible that she draws these illustrations by hand — watching the pages evolve was inspiring.
Sometimes we held back certain details, like a rug pattern, until later in the process to see how other elements (such as wallpaper) affected the overall composition. We experimented in Photoshop and made small adjustments — for example cleaning up a chair’s chevron pattern — before approving final art.
Ultimately a final version was produced and included in the book. This dining-room image went through several iterations from its original photo to the finished illustration.
Some pages were simpler to produce, others required more refinement. We included rooms from our own house — living room, dining room, bedroom, sunroom, and office — and adjusted the illustrations so they read well in line form, either by adding art for interest or toning down overly busy details.
We’re thrilled to see people coloring the book and sharing their takes. Different palettes and approaches dramatically change the same rooms, which is part of the fun. If you color pages from the book, please tag them with #YHLColoringBook so we can find and enjoy them.
For anyone new to adult coloring: colored pencils (even basic Crayola sets) are a forgiving option for this book’s home-decor subjects. Pencils make it easier to achieve realistic shading and subtle blending, while markers can sometimes look too bold for some interiors. That said, experienced colorists can create amazing results with markers or watercolors — the gold fridge image is a great example.
The book is printed on thick, premium, perforated paper, so pages can be easily removed for framing or separate display. We included some larger frameable quote pages that echo artwork shown in room spreads (for example, the “Do Less With More Focus” print). There are also botanical pages and other illustrations intended to be colored and showcased.
We included mood board pages so you can experiment with color combinations and patterns. For instance, you can color fabric swatches in your chosen accent tones, then test cabinet and tile colors against those swatches to see how everything works together on the page.
We hope you enjoy Color at Home as much as we enjoyed creating it. It was a delightful, unexpected project and we’re excited it’s out in the world.
Special thanks to our editors Reagan and Sada at Paige Tate & Co and to Joan Borawski, our illustrator — you all felt like family through the process. #colornerdsforthewin
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