With this book Kevin Mcloudd has taken the hard work out of home decorating by researching, selecting and combining over 700colours into more than 60tried-and-tested palettes that will transform your home.

Printed in colours for astonishing accuracy, each palette is the blueprint for decorative scheme. Transfer any palette to your own home confident the knowledge that it has been sourced by a renowned authority on colour with an instinctive understanding of colour trends.

Taken from a wide variety of sources – historical, regional and cultural – each palette is made up of colour swatches accompanied by a photograph demonstrating how those colours can be used in period or contemporary settings. A palette based on eighteenth-century French porcelain, for example, is translated into a modern country home.

With hints on how best and in what situations to use each colour, the palettes provide inspiration combined with practical information so you can effortlessly achieve the look.

Kevin Mcloud is a writer and broadcaster and one of the UK's foremost authorities on domestic architecture and design. He has written several books and is a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers. He also runs a design practice and amongst other things, presents Grand Designs for Channel 4.