HOME TRENDS
The Story Behind Home For Now: Earl of East x Gestalten
The Story Behind HOME FOR NOW
Home For Now: Living Well Without Staying Long is our first interiors book, created in collaboration with Gestalten. Through photography, personal stories and conversations with people across London, New York and Los Angeles, it explores how we make a place feel like home, even when it isn't ours forever.
The idea grew from our own experiences of moving between spaces and the conversations we've had through Earl of East about scent, belonging and the everyday rituals that make somewhere feel personal.
We’ve spent most of our adult lives moving between homes, cities and spaces that were never quite ours, at least not permanently. In many ways, we’ve built Earl of East in much the same way. Opening stores, moving locations, creating spaces from scratch, always thinking about how somewhere can feel warm, personal and lived-in, even if it’s temporary.
Since founding Earl of East in 2014, we've seen this play out not just in our own lives, but through the people around us. Team members who had just arrived in London. Others who were only here momentarily. Some coming to the end of their time in the city and others choosing to make it their home. Beyond that, we’ve had countless conversations in-store. About scent, about rituals, about the small details that make a space feel like home. And one thing kept coming up, again and again. More people are renting. More people are living between places, relocating for work, or arriving in new cities from somewhere else entirely. There’s a growing sense of impermanence, but at the same time, a real desire to make wherever you are feel like your own.
Through travelling, hosting events and meeting people from our community, it really started to take shape as an idea. We found ourselves asking: what does home look like now? And how do people create a sense of belonging when they know it might not be forever?
All this shaped an idea that we pitched to Gestalten over a year ago: to document rented homes as they are today: spaces that are in progress, evolving and deeply personal. So much of what we saw in coffee table books felt out of reach, focused on finished spaces, forever homes, or large-scale projects. It didn’t reflect the reality of the people we were speaking to every day. There was very little that spoke to renters, to people moving between places, carrying pieces of their lives with them and continually reshaping what home looks like.
The response was incredible. People opened their doors to us, invited us into their homes and trusted us with their spaces and their stories. From there, the project really came to life. We travelled across London, then further afield to New York and Los Angeles, meeting people and seeing how they live. In some cases, our community documented their own spaces and sent them in, adding another layer to the project.
What emerged is a collection of homes that reflect a moment in time. Not finished spaces, but lived-in ones, shaped by movement, by change and by the people inside them. Looking at these images now, some of those spaces may have already changed. People may have moved on, added new pieces, cut their hair, started again somewhere else. And that’s exactly the point. It’s about finding comfort in the in-between and creating meaning in spaces that might only ever be ours for now.
Discover Home For Now
Created in collaboration with Gestalten, Home For Now: Living Well Without Staying Long brings together personal interiors, photography and stories from people redefining what home means today.
A book for renters, design lovers and anyone who believes that home is something we create, rather than somewhere we simply stay.
