A Home for Now: Living Well in Temporary Spaces

Home for Now explores how to live meaningfully in spaces that are not entirely your own. In a world shaped by mobility, high rents, and fading permanence, it shows how a new generation creates home within borrowed walls and between cities.

Case studies reveal how limits inspire ingenuity: spaces that feel personal, layered, and alive with ritual. Blending essays, photography, and ideas for everyday life, the book is a portrait of adaptability and the art of making space—wherever you are, and however long you stay.

Earl of East is a fragrance and lifestyle brand based in London, known for its thoughtful blend of storytelling, design, and sensory experience. Founded by Niko Dafkos and Paul Firmin, the brand began as a market stall and has since evolved into a multidisciplinary studio with a global presence. Their work reflects a deep appreciation for considered living and a commitment to creating atmosphere, community, and connection.

Paul Firmin is an author, and co-founder of Earl of East, the London-based fragrance and lifestyle brand he created with his partner, Niko Dafkos, in 2014.

His work explores the relationship between scent, space and everyday life, and how considered objects and small rituals can change the atmosphere of a home. Through Earl of East, Paul works across fragrance, interiors, retail, publishing and creative collaborations.

He is the co-author of The Scented Candle Workshop and Home For Now: Living Well Without Staying Long. Moving from the craft of creating fragrance to the wider idea of creating home, the books reflect his belief that meaningful spaces are built through memory, personality and ritual rather than permanence or perfection.

Paul lives and works in East London.

Niko Dafkos is an author and co-founder of Earl of East, the London-based fragrance and lifestyle brand he created with his partner, Paul Firmin, in 2014.

With a background in production, Niko is interested in how creative ideas become tangible experiences, whether through fragrance, craftsmanship, interiors or the daily rituals that shape how we live. He has grown Earl of East from a market-stall project into a multidisciplinary studio with an international following.

He is the co-author of The Scented Candle Workshop and Home For Now: Living Well Without Staying Long. Together, the books explore two closely connected ideas: how we create scent and how we create a feeling of home.

Niko lives and works in East London.

Iris Hempelmann (she/her) studied Archaeology and Classics at Humboldt University and Freie Universität Berlin. Since joining the Berlin-based publishing house gestalten in 2011, she has worked across a wide range of cultural formats, including exhibitions, workshops, retail concepts, and books. Drawn to the spaces where disciplines intersect, she has contributed to numerous publishing projects spanning design, architecture, food, travel, and contemporary culture.