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At its core, every building is just walls and a roof. But in the right hands, that blank canvas can become something extraordinary. All it takes is passion, great taste, and a bold vision to transform a regular space into something special.

The World Of Interiors on Instagram proves this again and again. The page collects designs that can only be described as art—from extravagant apartments owned by fashion designers to humble but colorful homes belonging to ordinary milkmen. We’ve rounded up some of the best below. Scroll down to see them.

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#1 Thucydides Papageorgiou Was In The Process Of Restoring His Childhood Home In Kapesovo, Northwestern Greece, When He Chanced Upon A Swirl Of Colour Beneath The White Plasterwork

Adorning almost every room were sumptuous murals from 18th-century Zagori merchants, having lain undiscovered for decades.

#2 Richly Patterned Maiolica Tiles Crop Up Everywhere In Sicily, But Nowhere In Quite Such Profusion As Pio Mellina’s Open-To-The-Public Apartments In A Historic Palazzo

#3 Britain’s Only Private Train

All these interiors are absolutely gorgeous. What a relief after scrolling through yet another gray minimalist apartment with nothing on the walls.

You know the type: beige everything, white countertops, maybe one sad plant in the corner. They’re practical enough, but they have about as much personality as a dentist’s waiting room.

#4 Hidden Behind The Neo-Renaissance Façade Of Monumental Leuven University Library Is An Unexpected 20th-Century Masterpiece

#5 Transplanted To Tangier After Kissing New York Goodbye, Frank De Biasi And Gene Meyer Bought, Fused And Did Up The Place Next To Their Own. It Rocked The Kasbah

#6 Victor Horta’s Home/Studio Near Brussels Pushed Boundaries For What Art Nouveau Could Achieve

Now that it’s a museum, visitors can meander on down to discover the work of one of Belgium’s biggest architects.

Sure, the minimalist aesthetic can be interesting in its own right. But people have been decorating their living spaces for as long as we’ve had them, and that says something.

Cave dwellers painted their walls some 20,000 years ago, turning cold stone into something more personal. Even animals do this. Birds don’t just throw together any old nest. They weave and carefully arrange their small homes to suit their needs.

That instinct to make a space truly yours has been with us forever, and there’s something beautiful about that.

#7 Fashion Editor Grace Coddington Puts Her Famous Cats To Work As Muses For Murals

In the San Vicente Bungalows, a low-key California members’ club frequented by those in the know.

#8 In The 1950s Vladimir Ossipoff, A Russian Pioneer Of Hawaiian Modernism, Built A Mountain Cabin On The Island Of O‘Ahu

Once the émigré solved the challenge of transporting his materials 720 metres above sea level, the abode enjoyed a 270-degree panorama of wilderness, from the peaks to the Pacific Ocean.

#9 Anyone Answering The Call Of Nature In Kawakawa, A Town On New Zealand’s North Island, Is In For A Huge Surprise Down At The Public Loos

There they’ll be accosted by wonky floors, forests of totem-like columns, the odd whale relief and a kaleidoscope of tiles.

Back in the day, this wasn’t called interior design just yet. But beyond primitive cave paintings, people found plenty of ways to express themselves through their homes.

Pueblo Indians used abstract patterns on their pottery. Wooden stools often featured ornamental carvings. Basketwork, wooden vessels, textiles—all these things gradually emerged as people made their spaces more livable.

#10 Like A Cluster Of Daleks, The Curvaceous-[bodily fluid]-Spiky Live/Work Home Created By The Late Carlos Páez Vilaró In 1980s Argentina Might As Well Be Life On Mars

#11 Never Let It Be Said That Pakistan’s Truck Drivers Lack Imagination Or Vision

They’ve got them both by the lorry load, commissioning highly skilled phool patti artists to turn their cabs into prettified pads.

#12 This Virtually Untouched Gem Of A 1930s Hunting Lodge Outside Paris By The Designer And Architect Pierre Petit Is Complete With Original Furnishings And Decoration

In this Art Deco Gesamtkunstwerk all the creative disciplines unite to spectacular effect.

Fast forward to Ancient Egypt, and things really started getting interesting. The wealthy inhabited large estates with gardens and decorated interiors. Bold colors like blue, gold, and red symbolized life, wealth, and power in their homes. Pharaohs often slept in beds made from gold, with detailed headboards and footboards scattered with twinkling stones.

Meanwhile, ordinary Egyptian homes were sparsely furnished with simple and functional pieces, the most common being a three or four legged low stool. Your furniture told everyone exactly where you stood in society.

#13 17th-Century Riverine Flat In Paris

Scenic-paper maestros Mehmet and Dimonah Iksel have fused French Hollywood Regency furniture with exquisitely detailed tableaux. In typical Iksel fashion, pattern meets pattern in almost every corner.

#14 The Blossom-Bright Home In Kent

#15 Parham House Put To Use Its 17th-Century Needlework Collection With Great Effect, Inspiring Planting Schemes And Even A Modern Maze

Plus, keeping with a tradition established in the 1920s, 30 buckets of flowers are cut from the garden and grounds each week, filling the house with arrangements – all based on the embroideries around them.

Then came the Middle Ages, and everything got pretty bleak. The era featured somber wood paneling, minimal furnishings, and stone-slab flooring. Even wealthy people kept things dark. War and the church had a way of making interior decorating feel frivolous.

But Europeans eventually shook that off. Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, the French Renaissance sparked a renewed focus on art and creativity in interior design. Color came back. Beauty became acceptable again. People started caring about how their homes actually looked.

#16 Houses Don’t Get Any More Opulent Than Otto Wagner’s Storied Villa In Vienna

#17 Some 20,000 Books – In Niches, Stacked On A Saarinen Table, And Steeply Shelved

1902 Milan flat of editore Massimo Vitta Zelman, one of Italy’s top publishers of art books and catalogues.

#18 In His Bethnal Green Flat, A Former Yoga Studio, Artist Enrico David Uses The Human Body As A Vehicle For Mental Contortions In A Range Of Media

Jumping ahead to the Victorian era (1837-1901), things got pretty extravagant. The Industrial Revolution meant furniture, art, and decorative objects were suddenly accessible to common people. Middle-class families could finally afford to decorate, and they embraced it fully.

People filled living spaces with beautiful objects, wall art, shelves of trinkets, and furniture. Designers used and modified many styles from various time periods like Gothic, Tudor, Elizabethan, English Rococo, and Neoclassical. More was always more.

#19 White Grapes Hang From The Kitchen Ceiling At This Ancient Monastery Orchard In The High Tiber Valley

Until February, when Isabella dalla Ragione presses them to make 50 litres of vin santo. She has spent over 40 years searching convents, family estates and abandoned farms for forgotten species of tree, bringing many back from the brink of extinction.

#20 Lucie De Moyencourt’s South African Home Is A Gleaming Pearl In The Table Mountain Terrain

The artist’s home is a nautical grotto and a muse for her ever-growing shop, Shellegance.

#21 Milkman Ruurd Wiersma Spent Five Years Decorating The Walls Of His Modest House In Burdaard

After World War I, tastes changed once once again. Art Deco emerged with fresh energy. The movement started in France just before World War I and gained prominence at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925.

Art Deco was characterized by bold and rich colors, sharp geometric shapes, and delicate, detailed finishes. Sunburst mirrors appeared everywhere. Zigzag patterns covered everything from wallpaper to furniture.

New materials like aluminum, chrome-plated steel, and early plastics such as Bakelite allowed high-style design to reach a wider public. The whole look celebrated machines and modernity.

#22 Wicker Is Having A Moment Again. Just Like The Pliable Organic Fibres That Form It, The Craft Always Bounces Back

#23 The Architect Anders Annerstedt And Designer Katarina Abrahamsson Created A Temple To Mid-Century Modernism, Furnished With Vintage Pieces By Pioneers Josef Frank, Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen And Gae Aulenti

#24 In The Early 1970s, This 16th-Century Castle In The Netherlands Was On The Point Of Dereliction

n strode the late furniture and product designer Peter Ghyczy, whose antiques, ancestral portraits and space-age pieces still live in perfect harmony.

The red double doors in the first image, which were bought at an antique shop, conceal a hatch that leads to a wine cellar. Flanking them are floating glass shelves – a 1972 design and one of Peter’s first. The large painting at left is by one of his ancestors, while the oval portraits have been in the house for generations. The ‘Garden Egg Chair’ is a limited-edition model in matte silver.

Then mid-century modern showed up around the 1940s-1960s with a different approach. After World War II, Americans began to embrace a more casual lifestyle while architects sought to create spaces that were functional and emphasized a connection with nature.

Large windows and sliding glass doors allowed for an abundance of natural light and a strong connection to the outdoors. Warm wood tones created a very cozy environment. This style is experiencing a particular rise in popularity right now.

What’s interesting is how these styles keep cycling back. Modern homes mix Victorian wallpaper with Art Deco lighting with mid-century furniture. The purists from each era would probably hate it, but who cares? Your home should tell your story, not follow someone else’s rulebook.

#25 Fresh From Designing A Mega-Gallery, Argentinian Architect Luis Laplace Landed The Revamp Of A Small-Fry Fisherman’s Villa In Mahón, Menorca’s Sailboat-Filled Main Port

From the ‘old village’ green tones to the rustic redwork trim pinned on the shelves, Villa Pepita sings of it’s modest origins.

#26 Tim Walker’s Canal-Side Cottage – Formerly A Buddhist Commune – Is Filled With All Manner Of Items Picked Up On His Many Work Expeditions

The place feels ‘like a sanctuary with the most incredible energy’, says Vogue’s star photographer.

#27 This Late 1950s Apartment In Milan Remains Remarkably Untouched Since The Day It Was Designed

#28 Wall After Wall Of Intricate Mural Decoration

Folk-art aficionados will be humming with excitement at what the artist and honeybee guardian, Karina Czudnochowski, has achieved in her home.

#29 Design Studio Casa Josephine’s Has Turned This Investor’s Flat In Madrid From ‘Empty Box’ Into Treasure Chest

Design studio Casa Josephine’s use of rare materials, from onyx to travertine, has turned this investor’s flat in Madrid from ‘empty box’ into treasure chest.

#30 In An Area That’s Long Attracted The Cream Of Cairo, Photographic Agent George Lang Is Sitting Pretty In The Immobilia Building, A Landmark Familiar To All Citizens

Filling his lofty flat with antiques bought locally has been a culturally enriching adventure for the Australian émigré.

#31 When Laura Ungaro Was Finally Allowed To View The Three-Storey Flat In Paris That Her Daughter And Son-In-Law Had Decorated On Her Behalf, She Was Flooded With Emotion

Why? The project was to have been orchestrated by her husband, the fashion designer Emanuel, but his [passing] in 2019 necessitated a mournful change of plans. As a widow, Laura would have to face the new place alone, but at least the collecting passions of her life partner were everywhere in evidence.

#32 In A 1920s Brooklyn Co-Op, Tony Liu – Co-Founder Of Diet Prada – Has Turned His Apartment Into A Study Of Romance And Restraint, Using Colour As The Mood Music

Helped by Farrow & Ball’s Patrick O’Donnell, he’s made Impressionist blues, Dior pinks, and Prada greens unfold with unexpected harmony.

#33 One Of Italy’s Most Soulful, Off-The-Beaten-Track Retreats

Stranded in a hilltop settlement in Tuscany during lockdown, Johnny and Elizabeth Petrucci lured a sequestered family home back to life.

#34 Traditionally Executed By Married Women, These ‘Bridal Chamber’ Comb Paintings Are Created By Scraping Away A Top Layer Of White Kaolin To Reveal The Black Manganese Beneath

Every June, in the tribal villages of Hazaribagh, northeast India, the heavy rains come, washing away the vernacular Khovar designs adorning mud-hut walls. Somehow, their fleeting nature makes them all the more precious.

#35 She’s Ensured Something To Nourish The Soul Is Woven Into Every Room

Tapestry artist Brenda Goggs’s ‘ex-govie’ in Canberra was taken apart and remade anew – its layout perfectly tailored, indeed, to fit the vast, floor-to-ceiling frame on which she plies her craft.

#36 ‘Step Inside The Vienna Stage. You Might Call It A Gesamtkunstwerk,’ Says Ballet Costume Designer Susanne Bisovsky Of Her Cosmopolitan Atelier

Located in the city’s 7th district – once the heart of a thriving silk industry – the studio is part salon, part archive, and entirely enchanting.

#37 Having Relocated To Bulgaria Over 20 Years Ago, Tim Clinch Has Grown To Love Its Quieter Pace Of Life

Here, the photographer divulges how he has found things to do in the country and, touchingly, kept in contact with his home’s previous owners.

#38 U Is For… Ugly

‘Ugly’ is a floating cultural construct. It can attach itself to anything broken, deformed or on the margins. But we can also see that with bebop jazz, Surrealist art, or Brutalist architecture, a creative rupture with conventions of beauty is often the spur to progress.

Pictured here is fashion designer Johnson Hartig’s riotous library at his home in Los Angeles (WoI October 2021).

#39 So What Exactly Do You Do With An Old German Minehunter That Suddenly Sails Into Your Possession?

The question foxed Gian Carlo Bussei the very moment he made his extravagant impulse buy. But after getting a protégée of Renzo Mongiardino on board, the dashing industrialist and poet decided to deck out the vessel’s interior like the most opulent Ottoman encampment.

#40 An Artist’s Flat In London’s Trellick Tower Is The Perfect Playground For Decorator Adam Bray’s Corbusier Colours And Glossy Ceilings

#41 Yvonne Bailey Smith’s Home Brilliantly Showcases African, Caribbean And Diasporan Art

#42 Since Moving To Margate, Nicholas Cullinan And Mattias Vendelmans Have Been Seeing Quite A Lot Of The Skies That Drew Turner To The Resort

In fact, every passing cloud is the source of endless reflection, thanks to all the mirrored strips that line their bolthole in a Brutalist block.

#43 Mayan And Hispanic Cultures Collide In This 17th-Century Church In Mexico

#44 Painter Jean Messagier And His Wife, The Ceramicist Marcelle Baumann, Found A Retreat From Frenetic Mid-Century Paris

#45 He’s Cleverly Converted A Former Garage Into A Polychrome Home And Studio

Dutch painter Dirk Jensma a former make-up artist, has found joy and inspiration aplenty in the town of Sóller on the northwest coast of Mallorca.

#46 In Ojai, A Small City Northwest Of Los Angeles, Photographer-Turned-Ceramicist Hilary Walsh Lives In Her Family Home, Alongside Peacocks And Earthy Ceramics

#47 Sorbet Hues And Delectable Collections Of Objet Trouvé Whet One’s Decorative Appetite In This Victorian Townhouse In East Molesey, Belonging To Artists Karen Nicol And Peter Clark

#48 Subtle And Simply Decorated, Artists Dörte And Volker Berner’s Home In Rural Namibia Has An Unmistakeable Quiet Power

It’s the result of patient ministrations made gradually over 50 years.

#49 The Vertiginous Construction And Disconcerting Décor Of Their House – Set In Aspic – Are All Of The Pair’s Mischievous Intent To Tease, Please And Create Unease

Fifty years ago, Salvador Dali was putting the finishing touches on what was to become one of his final masterworks, ‘Gala [undressed] Looking at the Sea Which at 18 Metres Appears the President Lincoln’. He painted it here, in Port Lligat, Catalonia, where he and his wife Gala found home.

#50 The House Became His Life’s Work – A Strange Shrine To A Lost Love, Its Murals And Cradles A Tribute To The Family He Never Had

Waiting for the return of his fiancée, who was working away from home, Karl Junker – once a promising artist – began building a sprawling carved-wood house for their life together in the German town of Lemgo. But his betrothed never returned, abandoning him without a word.

#51 The Pavillon De Voisins

Despite his undying passion for the styles of the 18th-century French courts, in later life Karl Lagerfeld drew increasing aesthetic sustenance from his childhood in northern Germany

#52 Swedish Decorator Beata Applies A Romantic Jamesian Sensibility To A Gilded Age Mansion In New York

#53 Jane Schulak Once Summoned David Hicks To Michigan To Help Rescue Her New ‘Ugly’ Home

Though their encounter proved ill-timed, his acolytes Barbara Wirth and Christian Badin picked up the baton after he died – a partnership that would teach the owner all she knows.

#54 In The Middle Of Milan, Roberto Gerosa Has Taken A Former Frozen-Fish Warehouse And Fashioned It Into A Magical Kingdom

Raising the roof and adding a suspended upper floor, the art director/decorator has filled his live-in studio with books, bric-a-brac, quirky bespoke furniture and the tools of his trade – textiles, embroidered trim and lamp-making materials. As he told Lee Marshall in our January 2018 issue, ‘my job is all about atmosfera’.

#55 Cosy, Spanish-Style Bungalow Encapsulates A Lifetime Of Collecting, Distilled Into A Tapestry Of Cultural And Pastoral References

#56 There Is A Particular Focus On Folk Artists From The Northeast, Such As Chico Da Silva, As Well As Salvador Practitioners Who Convey The Vibrancy And Spirituality Of The City

‘I call myself a folk artist, because I find it to be the most generous category,’ says Abe Odedina . ‘It’s a nice group to be a part of because it has a healthy relationship with history.’ His Salvador house attests: it is engulfed by artwork that he and his wife Sarah – who made the ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’ tapestry – have collected throughout their travels in Brazil.

#57 Architect Umberto Mantineo Brought His Engineer’s Eye To Rational Live/Work Space

Renovated from a boxy 1930s basement apartment in Rome’s Flaminio district, enlivening it with Empire-style furniture and spiky ceramics. In the bedroom, for example, to the left of a 17th-century Madonna and child is an Empire commode. Chomping a banana on top of it is a vintage ceramic monkey by Giovanni Ronzan.

#58 A Refined Combination Of Regency Chic And 1960s Swing Transforms This Stockholm Interior From Earnest To Electric

#59 On A Mountainside In Piedmont, Paolo Pejrone Has Created His Own Slice Of Paradise

#60 Tom Phillips Subscribed To Picasso’s Notion That One’s Whole House Should Serve As A Studio

And the late artist happily used the unpainted surfaces of his early Victorian home in Peckham, south London, as a sketchbook, whether for scribbled phone numbers, drawn ideas or ‘notes to self’. Short on creature comforts, the place became a 3D embodiment of the owner’s mind.

#61 It’s Amazing What And Who You Can Squeeze Into A Bijou Rental Flat In An East London Warehouse

For one trio – up-and-coming gourmet Jago Rackham, artist Lowena Hearn and curator Tosia Leniarska – that means quite an array of cookware, objets, paintings, sculpture and, at least once a week, some very well-fed supper guests…

#62 Decorator Joanna Plant Has Done Up A Camden Off-Licence (And Flats Above) Once Frequented By Amy Winehouse

When she bought the place in 2023, all the floors came up and the fake ceilings came down.

#63 Riccardo Priolisi And John Hooks Are Confirmed Classicists, As Their Sicilian Masseria Makes All Too Manifest

Over three years, the couple converted this fortified farming hamlet into a vast holiday home, then steeped it in allusions to the great empire based in Italy. Nor have they neglected the illustrious figures, from Goethe to Picasso, who subsequently drew inspiration from the ancients.

#64 Candace Wheeler’s Upstate New York Summerhouse Was ‘Dirty, Dingy And Delicious

The pictures also reveal, says Mitchell Owens, why she was America’s William Morris.

#65 A Certain Atypical Tuscan Property In Pescia Fiorentina

Has played host to a motley band of bloodspattered trackers over the years – opera composer Giacomo Puccini among them – drawn to the lodge by the region’s abundance of game. Since Paolo and Maria Cattaneo got their hands on the place in the 1970s, though, they’ve managed to tame it into a family home – but that’s not to say the couple have banished its historic chasseur chic.

#66 A Former Silk Factory In Ardèche Wasn’t A Hard Sell For Pierre-Gilles Chaussonnet – Artist And Inventor Of ‘Machine Sculptures’

Despite its remote location, he revitalised the factory with interventions that are as decorative as they are innovative.

#67 She Reckons Vision And Style Are Ripe For Some Credit Too

Surrounded by acre upon acre of aromatic citrus groves – not to mention 40,000 first-edition books now in her care – Fiona Corsini di San Giuliano couldn’t be more content in her ancient masseria on Sicily’s eastern coast. The châtelaine, who’s an artist, gardener and retreat host, attributes it all to providence, though Marella Caracciolo Chia would beg to disagree.

#68 Antique Dealer Lisa Pahne Fills Her Bloomsbury Flat With Flea-Market Finds And Auction Buys

#69 Alan Rorke Take Their Décor Cues From East Asian Culture, Transmuting An Affection For Comme Des Garçons Shirts, Ceramics And Silk Kimonos Into Their Suburban Cape Town Home

#70 Rolf Sachs The Swiss Artist’s Car Park-Turned-Studio Is Still Eloquent In The Design Principles Of Its Prima Lingua

#71 A Bathroom Full Of Masks

Museum of Witchcraft and Magic director Simon Costin conjures a new look for his 16th-century Cornish long-house, Dockacre.

#72 Among Pistachio Orchards On The Greek Island Of Aegina, Artist Matilda Percy Has Created An Idyllic Retreat

For those looking to recharge their batteries and tap into the island’s innate inspiration.

#73 In Milan, Unprepossessing Exteriors Often Contain World-Class Treasure Troves

The home of collectors Andrea Zanatelli and Kenny Spooren is one such hidden gem, appearing in a new book documenting the beauty, idiosyncrasy and romance of Italian interiors.

#74 Step Into The Home Of Sylvain Sankalé And You’re Met With A Canon Of West African Art History

#75 Melissa Ulfane, Founder Of The Acclaimed Pushkin, Has Been Exploring The World – And Collecting En Route – Ever Since She Was A Young Girl

But now the spoils from her adventures, as showcased in her 17th-century home in Paris, are going under the hammer as she embarks on another thrilling new chapter.

#76 ‘They Are Extras That Have Added Authenticity, Beauty And Pleasure To My Life’

#77 Symbolist Belgian Painter James Ensor Specialised In Scenes With The Clangour Of Ghastly Carnivals. They Seem All The More Uncanny In His Strait-Laced Family Home In Ostend, Reckons Barbara Stoeltie

#78 The Kitchen In Bookseller Henrietta Dax’s House In Cape Town

Decorated with a collection of art created by famous friends or picked up at auction. For instance: numerous posters, among them a local newsbill announcing JM Coetzee’s 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature, a stencil poster for the Workers International Vanguard League from 1994, and The Liverpool Echo’s announcement of the capture of Pretoria in 1900. The lantern was acquired in Rajasthan.

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