9 Steps to Beautiful Living Dream, Design & Decorate Your Home with Style
The
multitude of color schemes shown here will give the
novice plenty of ideas for enlivening a home's decor.
The majority of the book contains color schemes arranged
according to a desired effect, e.g., the il¬lusion
of space or a period feel. For each scheme, swatches
of color combinations ap¬pear with numerous photos
of how the colors are used in actual rooms, a feature
lacking in Anna Starmer's The Color Scheme Bible:
Inspirational Palettes for Designing Home Interiors.
Especially helpful are the sections featuring a photo
of a room followed by color illustrations that show
no fewer than eight variations vividly depicting how
color can affect the look of each room. The book concludes
with a gallery of paint techniques accompanied by
brief instructions. With its abundance of color choices,
this book is rec¬ommended for public libraries.
As usual, Creative Homeowner provides a well-illustrated,
practical guide to transform¬ing a home. Connelly
(New Smart Approach to Kids' Rooms) examines all aspects
of the front of a house. Topics include paint and
color, pathways and windows, driveways and garages,
porches, landscaping, and lighting. Each section contains
numerous color photos of various residential styles,
with the captions describing the success of each decorating
detail. Included are maintenance tips and advice on
how and when to hire a profes¬sional. Although
some topics are covered briefly, e.g., gardening,
this overview of front-yard design is comprehensive
overall. Recom¬mended for public libraries of
all sizes.
American to make Architectural Digest's "Top
100" list of designers and architects, shares
her step-by-step process for creating a pleasing home
decor. After beginning with a careful evaluation of
a room's use and a discussion of creating personal
style, she then moves on to space planning, consider¬ing
color, pattern, texture, and accessories. For each
step, Hayes illustrates her advice with photos of
designs (many of them her own) and concludes with
a review of im¬portant points. Although never
advocating a particular style, Hayes tends to compose
modern and contemporary decor with ethnic accents.
Recommended where there is con¬tinued interest.
Lamenting that the book he would give his clients-John
Milnes Baker's How To Build a House with an Architect-is
out of print, Morosco, founder of a preservation-based
architectural firm in Pittsburgh, has writ-ten a guide
to explain the value of working with an architect.
First he discusses what an architect can do for a
client, matters of edu¬cation and licensing, the
difference between an architect and other design professionals,
and the advantages of working with an ar¬chitect.
He then delineates how a client and an architect should
work together, explaining what to expect from the
relationship and the architect's duties each step
of the way. The text is illustrated mostly with color
photos and design plans of Morosco's work. This guide
for both amateurs and professionals is recommended
for collections large and small.. Peterson (founder,
Motif Designs) show-cases 13 houses whose renovations
have taken as little as six months and as many as
approximately three decades to complete. The length
of the project, a list of what was done, and challenges
the homeowners en-countered are provided for each
house, with most houses including before-and-after
pho¬tographs and floor plans. Peterson guides
readers through the process of determining desired
features that require planning and discusses choices
available for rooms that are most commonly renovated
(e.g., kitch¬ens) and most commonly expanded (e.g.,
family rooms). Especially helpful is the list of the
order of tasks in a renovation. With its real-life
approach and examination of every room of the house,
this book is recom¬mended for public libraries.
Interior designer and IKEA spokesperson Quinn details
a simple, inexpensive ap¬proach to home decorating.
She describes more than 20 rooms, all of which she
redecorated, reviewing design problems, before-and-after
photos, her design strategy, and budget details. She
provides simple instructions for the easy-to-make,
distinctive accessories, e.g., a canopy created from
a pot rack. A nice touch is that for many of the rooms,
she names specific paint colors and mentions where
to purchase the furnishings shown. Recommended for
public libraries.
Robinson, an expert on the British coun¬try house,
chronicles the stylistic evolution of the Regency
period's English country manor-'the centre of a self-contained
es¬tate and the setting of house parties"-with
regard not only to its architecture and decoration
but also to the social and politi¬cal climate
during its development. As with previous books from
this series, the black¬and-white and color photos
from the picture archives of Country Life magazine
vividly de¬pict the details of this domestic architectural
style, with examples of every kind located throughout
Great Britain. Recommended for large collections and
those focusing on Regency design.
