Home Design Updates

            Simply Styling: Fresh & Easy Ways to Personalize Your Home is written by Kirsten Grove of SimplyGrove, a popular interior design blog. Grove has created interiors for both residential and commercial properties worldwide. She also contributes to design magazines, and conducts a full design service including e-decorating. The book is a compilation of Grove’s ideas on styling the seven areas of today’s home -- living room, dining room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, entryway, and kid’s room – using what you have and what you find “on your journey”. Plenty of color photos accompany the text.

            The book The Shopkeeper’s Home: The World’s Best Independent Stores and their Stylish Homes is written by Caroline Rowland, the founder and editor of the online publication 91 Magazine. Do the owners of some of the world’s most beautiful retail stores have equally beautiful homes? This book shows color photos of the homes and shops of more than thirty shopkeepers; highlighting the owners’ excellent taste and unique design skills.

            She Sheds: A Room of Your Own is written by Erika Kotite, who has worked as a magazine editor and book developer in the arts, textile, and crafting sectors. Here she shows the reader what options are available for creating your own getaway from a shed; whether it is built from a kit, built from scratch, or repurposed from a previously used one. Color photos and descriptive text highlight a variety of styles that will tempt you to design your own.

The Bee Cottage Story: How I Made a Muddle of Things and Decorated My Way Back to Happiness

            Frances Schultz, the author, can list several accomplishments to her resume. She is a blogger (FrancesSchultz.com), author and co-author of several books, a contributing editor to House Beautiful, has appeared on several television shows, and more. Here she presents a combination memoir and home decorating guide; showing us her inner soul and her home and how she was able to develop both.

            The reader learns about Frances’s abilities and accomplishments during her early years, in her career and the social/emotional realm. Yet as she approached the age of fifty, she broke off a relationship just before the wedding because she realized that she wasn’t being true to herself and her fiance. At loose ends, Frances decided to cope psychologically by throwing herself into a renovation project. Before she broke off her engagement, Frances, with her fiance’s approval, had purchased a small cottage in East Hampton. She threw herself into the project; its details are recorded here with helpful decorating guidelines and accompanied by appealing before-and-after photographs taken by Trevor Tondro.    

            Happily, Frances succeeds in both creating her new home and recovering emotionally. This book is based upon the House Beautiful magazine series on the makeover of Bee Cottage.

            

Perfect Your Style

            New ideas for decorating your home can be found here at your library. Some of the new books we have are:

     Design Mom: How to Live with Kids: a Room-by-Room Guide is written by Gabrielle Stanley Blair, the author of the blog DesignMom.com. The theme of her book is how to live well with kids – and with six kids of her own she’s had a lot of practice. Blair’s ideas focus on finding a solution that is elegant yet works within your architectural and financial constraints. An abundance of color photos along with descriptive text illustrate family-friendly decorating solutions.

     The Height of Style: Inspiring Ideas from the World’s Chicest Rooms is from the editors of Elle Décor magazine. The editors present a compilation of the “best” rooms they have published in the last five years, each with an “overarching vision”. The rooms are divided into four categories: classical, fanciful, practical, and personal. Each full-color photo is accompanied by detailed text and the name of the designer. A list of decorating sources is included.

     Sarah Style: An Inspiring Room-by-Room Guide to Designing Your Perfect Home is written by Sarah Richardson, an award-winning Canadian designer and the host of several HGTV television programs. Sarah tours each room in the house, from entry, to kitchen, to bedroom and more; presenting ideas and full-color photos of more than one hundred rooms. Get empowered to redo a small space or several rooms.

     Taunton’s All New Decorating Idea Book is written by Heather J. Paper, a decorating writer with many years of experience. In this book she focuses on the three elements that are the foundation of a well-designed room: style, color, and personal touches. Full-color photos illustrate how these elements are utilized in the selection of furniture, floor coverings, window treatments, lighting and more.  

Decorate Your Space

            Approach home design differently and achieve a unique look. These two books will help you out.

            Flea Market Fabulous: Designing Gorgeous Rooms with Vintage Treasures, is written by Lara Spencer who is a Good Morning America co-anchor, executive producer of the HGTV program Flea Market Flip and previous author of the best-selling I Brake for Yard Sales. Spencer relies heavily on flea market finds and then remakes them with the help of her design team and with professionals who reupholster and refinish the furniture. Full-color photos record the transition from before to after for each of her nine projects. Each assignment begins with inspiration boards, plans, and shopping lists and ends with a sense of accomplishment.

            Elements of Style: Designing a Home and a Life is written by Erin Gates, the author of the blog Elements of Style since 2007. The chapters of the book are divided into the various sections of the home: from entry, living room, kitchen . . . to the closet and outdoor spaces. Gorgeous color photos highlight the decors of her assorted homes over the years, as well as those of her clients. Gates also discusses personal issues such as whether or not to have children, her experiences with anorexia, and more. Reading her book is like having a conversation with a friend. A design resource guide is included.

House Beautiful Quick Changes: Fresh Looks for Every Room

    Be inspired to make creative changes in your home decor when you browse through this book. Descriptive text accompanies full-color photos to describe how to make simple modifications that don’t need a lot of time or money. Chapters focus on accessorizing, imaginative painting ideas, wallpapering designs, using mirrors, “cozy it up” schemes, “punch it up” ideas to brighten and refresh, and simplifying techniques. The works of various professional decorators are presented visually, along with quotes of designers’ secrets.

Books About Interior Decoration

     Are you looking to make changes in your home’s interior design? Get some new ideas when you check out these books.
   
      Home Design: a Layer-by-Layer Approach to Turning Your Ideas into the Home of Your Dreams is written by Sabrina Soto, an HGTV television personality. She shows the reader how to streamline the interior design process by “layering” the decorating elements one on top of the other. She begins with the first layer, understanding your space and planning your design, and continues with choosing colors, selecting surface treatments, organizing with storage, editing furniture, selecting textiles, and developing a lighting plan, until she reaches the final layer with choosing accents. A large collection of color photos illustrate Soto’s design ideas; the easy-to-read text also is helpful.
   
      Step-By-Step Home Design & Decorating is written by Clare Steel, an interior designer from the United Kingdom, who has written for several decorating magazines and property and design websites. Her book focuses on the practical side of design: from planning the layout of a bathroom, to evaluation and selection of kitchen appliances, refinishing wooden floors, selecting window treatments and sewing curtains, hanging wallpaper, setting up display space in a child’s bedroom, choosing lighting fixtures, and much, much more. The work continues with redecorating the outdoor space: planning electrical and water features, selecting hard landscaping, and choosing plants and furniture. Large color photos and detailed drawings accompany the logically organized text; sidebars offer additional information.

House Beautiful 500 Makeovers: Great Ideas & Quick Changeovers

Published by the editors of House Beautiful magazine, this volume of decorating ideas contains 500 designs to guide the reader in redecorating the home, be it in one room or several. Over 400 pages of full-color photographs illustrate, chapter by chapter, the basic components of design, including those of balance, simplicity, impact, function, details and color. Whether you accomplish a little or a lot, you’ll be inspired to begin creating your dream home.