The 3 Best YouTube Channels For Interior Design Lovers

IF A PICTURE IS worth a thousand words, what does a seven-minute video weigh in at? In the case of these three YouTube channels, the answer is a lot of home-design advice and inspiration. Sweeping house tours canvas chic dwellings both inside and out. Brainy architects and creative interior designers guide your visit and share their motives and insights. Here, some details on our three favourite accounts.

G’day, Great Houses

What started as an Instagram account dedicated to celebrating standout Australian residential design—with a focus on modernist-inspired contemporary homes—has evolved in the past year into a YouTube channel called The Local Project. “Illustrating the architecture and design of a project will always be at the crux of our video content, but there seems to be a real appetite for seeing and hearing from the people behind these projects,” said Local Project founder and director Aidan Anderson.

In a typical clip, Sydney architect James Stockwell talks us through the rationales and execution behind his firm’s Bunkeren (Danish for “bunker”) project, a concrete dwelling that seemingly floats on the edge of a rocky forest just south of Newcastle, in New South Wales. Integrated into the landscape, the home has planted roofs that cater to the family’s love of gardening and cooking, explains Mr. Stockwell, while noting the virtue of concrete in the fire-prone bush: “[Avoiding] the risk of burning down is a pretty big relief for families.” High-quality production and editing, as well as involving music, make these 8-minute experiences more like movie shorts than videos.

Schumacher Movies

The videos from heritage fabric and wallpaper purveyor F. Schumacher are ultimately promotional (its products make not-terribly-subtle cameos), but like the New York company’s email mailings, the clips on the Schumacher1889 channel are well-presented and engaging.

Six-minute house tours sweep through projects like Atlanta interior designer Beth Webb’s glass-walled Brays Island, S.C., retreat and Jenny Holladay’s grand millennial-inflected Chicago townhome, but the educational how-tos and entertaining In the Bag series are also a plus. In a clip from the latter, bicoastal designer Mary McDonald rifles through her leopard-printed Dolce & Gabbana purse, digging out design tools like fabric swatches (from her Schumacher collection). Her most unexpected possessions are two striped paper straws, one blue and white, one red and white, that she defends. “Aren’t they cute?” Then, holding them side by side vertically, she outlines her vision: “Look. A whole room after this. Painted. On the doorways.” A telling glimpse into the creative process.

Big Plans, Little Spaces

Fans of Never Too Small, a YouTube channel dedicated to small-format architecture and design, describe watching the company’s videos as a “meditative experience,” said Australian creator Colin Chee. “There is a simplicity in the way we produce, and our shooting style is purposely still.” The intention: to give the audience time to absorb and appreciate ingenious design, like that of a 581-square-foot London apartment by British architecture firm Craft Design.

The seven-minute films also give the dwellings context. The Craft Design apartment, for example, is one third of what was once a single-family home in the jumping Camdon neighbourhood. “Amy Winehouse used to live literally around the corner,” the architect-homeowner tells us.