Customer Reviews

Elegant and Easy Rooms: 250 Trade Secrets for Decorating Your Home

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought this book, and Lauri Wards Use What You Have Decorating, and it's sequel.

I'm glad I took a chance on this book. It's full of good ideas to spice up your space. I found that by going to the Benjamin Moore website, I was able to look up the paint colours she recommends and see them in place in rooms similar to mine.

It's about little bits and pieces, hints and tips, designer colour room recipes that work to pull from. The author says that any three tips in any room in your house will improve it tremendously and she is right. I've used quite a few little odds and ends from this book.

One of the best tips is the two white paints that go with any colour and look great. Benjamin Moore's Cloud White and White Dove. Not using pure stark white.

Another off white, she recommends again Benjamin Moore-- Navajo White which I've seen in 2 completely differently decorated houses and both times it looks terrific. Different in both spaces, this is a very reflective offwhite which takes on the dominant colour of the room, but has a warmth to it and depth.

Choosing paint is hard but this book makes it easier.

Another tip from the book that I loved, take a cup of wall colour paint, and stir into your ceiling paint. It will be invisible, but still affect colour perception just enough to make the whole room look better, richer, more pulled together. Ditto with the trim paint.

I love this book, it and the Lauri Ward ones and the Pottery Barn books. They've all really helped me pull my house together and make it look great.

I'm not a decorating type at all, and I highly recommend these books for anyone wanting a course in decorating that won't leave you having to laugh at your decorator friends snippy little jokes about your lack of design sense.

A wonderful book that gives helpful details, "chair rails" for example, "are at 36 inches high, one shade of paint above the chair rail, one below." The book is filled with usable information on how to achieve a desired look.

I've bought many magazines and books filled with pictures and information about decorating, so I thought I'd give the one with no pictures a try - and am I glad I did! This book (and the others in the series) give hints and advice I haven't seen elsewhere. If you enjoy decorating and want to stimulate your creativity, or are looking for hints to separate your home from the rest, this is a great book. It's a quick read, the ideas are clearly and succintly stated, and many suggestions are at minimal cost. If you're willing to try something a little different, you won't be disappointed.

This book is a list of bullet points with specific decorating ideas from the simple (weave artificial ivy through the security bars on your windows) to the impractical (have your lampshades custom lined with gold or pink silk for a flattering light). If some of the ideas appeal to you, you may find the book worthwhile. If not, you won't find any general decorating theories to help you design own space. (And by the way -- if you can afford custom-lined lampshades, skip the book and hire a decorator.)

I was really excited to read the section on paint colors. However, Benjamin Moore and fuller O'brien have changed their color palates and do not have these colors any more. If anyone knows how I can get or mix Fuller O'brien's Beauty C-23, please let me know.

I'm looking for text and photos. This book has text alone with a few poorly drawn example of sofas and window treatments. Boring - I'd rather watch OIL paint dry than read this.

...what this book is full of... the snobbish attitude of an interior design journalist, bent on showing her knowledge of design terms. The back cover of the book reads "..Create welcoming rooms that exude confidence, polish, and style (whether your budget is lavish or small)." The only thing small budgeted about this book is its price and the lack of usuable pictures.

The book talks constantly about using antiques and custom furniture and how guests won't be fooled by "new machine made Oriental rugs". Of course not! That's not the point to a book that is supposed to be about *affordable* design solutions. Mentioning and recommending "designer" paints as opposed to paint of the same quality found at Home Depot isn't "budget minded". The examples of art pieces (eg. authentic African tribal stools) given are not pieces that the average person can lay their hands on, let alone afford. The author would be better placed to say that "reproduction type pieces are available from import stores such as Pier One and Cost Plus".

The book gets three stars as there are some decent concepts and ideas presented once you get past the author's attitude, but if you're looking for real inspiration, instruction, and personality in a design book, get "Christopher Lowell's Seven Layers of Design". He is far more helpful and practical in creating truly "easy and elegant" rooms. And, he shows *how* to create them for us visual types, instead of using cute illustrations that give little inspiration to the content.

This is a lovely little book for the beginning decorator. The book has some very charming and sometimes inexpensive ideas - like decorating with bedsheets or canvas tarps, (or even brown craft paper) which actually turned out quite well. There are also some very helpful suggested palettes for painting your home.

There are a few caveats: the palletes are given as paint numbers - with no swatches of acutal paint colors. You must only imagine what "Stones of Provence" might be like, unless you want to go down to your local pro paint shop. That's the other thing. Although there are a few paints you can find at your local Home Depot or similar, most of the palettes are taken from pro-level paint labels like Benjamin Moore and Pratt & Lambert. These are mostly oil-based paints, and definitely not do-it-your-self jobs. They are also relatively expensive. The book does suggest the Martha Stewart line of paint, which also has pre-selected palettes, which is what I did use (with GREAT results). And these paints are latex-based (DIY-friendly) and available at KMart and Sears.

There are some creative and inspiring ideas here, even if some - like COMMISSIONING a painter to paint a patch of sky on your ceiling and framing it - are a bit silly, expensive and fanciful. It's worth the purchase price if you're looking for a few cute ideas and are okay with a book that's heavy on prose and light on pictures.

This book is simple and yet filled with some great ideas. I liked it because you can pick it up and read a few pages and get many helpful suggestions. They are easy to implement and won't cost you a fortune either.

I loved the insider tips. You can avoid mistakes while finding the ideas that work for your particular home. A decorator friend actually took notes from me after seeing our remodel. The color chapter saved so much money and time allowing me to get exactly what I wanted without experimenting.