A better title for this book would have been "How to Rearrange Your Single Purpose Living Room If You Have a Fireplace And Nice Furniture to Create a Comfortable Conversation Area". She talks exclusively about living rooms and 90% of the problems she shows are solved by moving the furniture closer together so people can hold a conversation comfortably. And not just any living room but a certain kind of formal living room. Almost every room she shows has a fireplace and has a very regular geometric shape. How do I create a focal point if my living room is an octagon with windows on almost every wall and no windowless wall is big enough to put a couch under? Only one room she shows has a television in it. How do I create a comfortable conversation area that also lets me (and my guests) watch television? How can the fireplace be the focal point of the room if I also have a television in it? What if I live in a 800 square foot apartment and don't have the space for the strict separation of duties that she seems to advocate? What if I don't have a family room to put the television in? What if I don't like my furniture or want to add to my collection? While I find her low-cost use-what-you-already-have approach a nice alternative to the spend-$20,000-and-change-everything approach, sometimes just rearranging your furniture and art isn't going to cut it.Instead what we get are 10 basic design guidelines. And I do mean basic. I honestly have to wonder about all of these people who have fireplaces and don't use them as the focal point of the room. While it seems like what she says is just common sense, I suppose there is some good in having it written down. It just seems like it isn't really enough information to fill an entire book and then charge $16 for it.I didn't find the lack of color as annoying as some other reviewers but that's because Ward's design consists primarily of physical arrangement; the use of color wouldn't have helped make things much clearer but definitely would have added to the cost of the book. Towards the end of the book she gives some lip service to the use of color and in that part of the book color photographs would have been useful.It is also somewhat surprising that a book published in 1998 (my edition was published in October 1999) doesn't have a single URL to any of the sources she provides at the end of the book. Use What You Have Decorating : Transform Your Home in One Hour With Ten Simple Design Principles -- Using the Space You Have, the Things You Like, the Budget You Choose
The most useful feature of this book is the list of major decorating mistakes: the author illustrates them clearly, so you can see why they are mistakes, and offers simple, inexpensive solutions. The before-and-after black and white photos of unmistakably real homes (first two pages: what's wrong here? overleaf: how did we fix it?) are very convincing. You'll get a lot of basic knowledge out of this book: how to create a good conversation space, how to create "flow" in a room, how to avoid visual clutter, what to do with collections. Her method of presentation teaches you what questions you need to ask yourself in order to show your own furniture and space to its best advantage. Which is what decorating is all about, right?
I have a few quibbles: why does Ward assume that only men are interested in good hi-fi equipment while women would be happy with anything that doesn't interfere with their decorating scheme?? I beg to differ... Her style is generally rather "feminine" - she'll encourage you to use lots of pillows and throws - which isn't for everyone.
The only major gap in this book is how to use colour to improve the look of your space. She's of the "white and/or beige is best for all rooms" school. Boring, boring, boring. Myself, I'm fixing to paint my dining room red.
I found this book to be extremly helpful because it guides you through creating a visually pleasing home that is also functional by rearranging items that you already have. So many people have beautiful things in their home and expensive furniture, but do not arrange these items so their rooms "work". This book gives you practical advice that you can really implement in an hour or two. It fullfills a need that is overlooked in most interior decorating books.This book does not focus on interior decorating as a whole or the components that are traditionally addressed in interior decorating books(picking a style, a color theme, window treatments, picking furniture and accessories). This book concentrates on the arranging portion of decorating. The book does not contain color photos (However, I did not find that to be an issue and actually found black and white to be helpful in this case because it didn't distract me from the topics). If you are looking for a book to guide you through the overall decorating process, you will be disappointment with this book. Check out Better Homes and Gardens New Decorating Book for a complete book on interior decorating. However, if you are looking for a book to help you arrange your stuff, then you will be absolutely thrilled with this book and the results you produce.
The genius of this book is that it gives you a firm foundation for any decorating you want to do, and you can do it WITHOUT SPENDING ANY MONEY! This book is the first and last word on furniture arrangement for non-professionals, and it doesn't tell you to buy new furniture before you start. This is not a comprehensive book on the whole decorating/design process, but it does teach by realistic example, it's thorough, and it's easy to understand. No, there are not a lot of color pictures, but color is not the point of this book. The photographs feature the sort of furniture and rooms that most of us are dealing with, rather than fantasy rooms that few of us can afford. I found it very helpful to see the bare bones without having every detail planned out for me. I do wish the author had ventured beyond the living room--perhaps most people request a re-design of their public rooms. However, what I learned certainly helped me to plan other spaces in my new house. If she ever does a book on other rooms of the home, I'd stand in line to buy it. I agree that some of her ideas are arbitrary, and I don't buy all of them. I have to admit, however, that removing the photographs and odd objects from our bookshelves considerably improved their appearance. This book is a wonderful companion to other decorating books you may all ready have or plan to buy. And it may save you a lot of money! - Interior Redesign - Decorating - Home Staging - Interior Design'
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