1 comments about Cool Hotels: India, Maldives, Sri Lanka.

1. Students of architecture, hotel and commercial building design, and travel will all find much to attract in Cool Hotels: India, Maldives, Sri Lanka: it features the best hotels of the region, from rustic to big city, and discusses craftsmanship, artistic d‚cor, and landscaping qualities which make each hotel exceptional. The meat of Cool Hotels lies in its full-page color photos of both interior and exteriors of featured hotels.

No comments about Pools & Gardens (Evergreen Series).

No comments about Encyclopedia of furnishing textiles, floorcoveringsand home furnishing practices, 1200-1950.

2 comments about Interior Designer's Portable Handbook.

1. Has great information, but print and graphics are extremely difficult to read.



2. This book is an excellent resource for my entire class of graduate students. It has a wealth of information, and is easy to take along to sites, classes, etc. There are even pages for you to take notes on. It is organized well and easy to follow. You won't find everything you ever needed to know (and didn't need to know), but you will find essential and most-used codes guidelines and dimensions for interior space.

No comments about Private Places: Creating a Peaceful Space of Your Own at Home.

2 comments about A Good House Is Never Done.

1. Author John Wheatman earlier wrote Meditation on Design, and has been selected as one of House Beautiful's Top American Designers.
   
   Wheatman believes that real design incorporates things that have meaning to the inhabitants. Well said in the foreword by Sara Susanka, AIA: ". helping readers understand how to make a living poem out of the place they live-a poem that continues to grow and change with the years."
   
   Most design books show rooms that are so perfect-and unattainable for most of us. However Wheatman shows real rooms used for cooking/dining, playing/working (office) as well as sleeping and bathing. The tips, techniques and ideas are all about new ways to think about everyday activity-as well as your common and treasured items.
   
   I found myself saying, "Oh, I could do that." as one photo showed a collection grouped, whether antiques or hobbies (like matchbook collection displayed as wall hanging).
   
   The photography by David Wakely was superb with rich colors and unique angles. Together with Wheatman's words, you'll be ready to make your home a place of inspiration, beauty and vitality.
   
   I like to go antiquing (or rather, bargain hunting) and when I select a certain piece that makes me smile-or my heart thump, I know that I am in for pleasure every time I see it in my home. This book about design didn't make me hate my own house like many do, but that I could do little things to make my house better-more filled with things that give me pleasure, displayed in unique ways.
   
   As the title states: A good house is never done.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: This is a book that will give you easy-to-implement ideas for your own home.



2. This book had so many great ideas and new ways to think about arranging and ordering your home. I really liked the way he wrote about sleeping, bathing, working, cooking, dining, and playing areas and not bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. I read this while out of town and came home and rearranged my living room. I can't stop looking at the space in my house in quite different ways. I want to move everything around based on the ideas I got from this book. It is actually a fun read too.

1 comments about Country Living Easy Transformations: Small Spaces and Cozy Corners (Easy Transformations).

1. I generally love the Country Living books, this one wasn't a big hit with me though. I bought it in hopes of finding idea's for creating a little nook for myself that would allow me to use a corner of a larger room. This book is more meant for decorating those odd corners that many houses have that you can't find a use for, as well as for small rooms. If your looking for something to help you out with a space like that, then this book might be just what your looking for, the idea's are as always with Country Living, beautiful and perfect for those who want to create a relaxed and cozy atmosphere. However, if you just want some decorating idea's in the same style, I would highly recommend spending a little more and buying: Country Living's 750 Style & Design Ideas for Home & Garden. That book is huge and has a virtual plethora of beautiful, practical idea's for decorating your home in the Country Living way. I have referred back to it so many times, I am certain I've gotten my money's worth out of it.

5 comments about Country Living Your House, Your Home: Randy Florke's Decorating Essentials (Country Living).

1. Loved everything about this book. He has a lot of interesting observations and ideas. I found it extremely inspiring for my home. We are a family of 5 with dogs and I appreciate his use of the found objects. Not only is it economical but if it withstood use by another family then it can take what we have to dish out. And on the plus side the older stuff is much more interesting looking. Highly recommend this book.



2. I'm liking Your House Your Home so much that I just ordered another copy for a friend who I know will love it also.
   
   I thought it was the most practical and down-to-earth and realistic decorating book that I've ever seen. The photographs are beautiful, and the advice the kind of thing a real person can easily use.



3. I own almost every book on country homes and decorating published over the past 5 years. This by far is the essential and best. The text is really great - hits the spot. Five Stars!



4. I love Randy Florke's style of decorating, but didn't enjoy this book. If you read Country Living magazine, the photos in this book will be all too familiar. I expected that there'd be some photos from the magazine, but this book had absolutely nothing new. The text is also disappointing and seems to be written for readers who've never given a thought to decorating prior to opening the book. It's hard to imagine that fans of this simple, yet sophisticated style would need to be told that "paintings add color to white walls," or "when furnishing a porch, refrain from using old automobile seats or broken down couches."



5. I'm sure this gentleman Randy Florke is immensely talented. I certainly LOVE the rooms featured in Country Living magazine. But I honestly didn't find many ideas I could actually use in my small 1300 sq. ft. 1800's house with 7 ft. ceilings.
   I'd have to agree with Nancy's review that many of the ideas are not practical. How are my kids going to sit on those metal chairs? And with dogs, I could NEVER put out the kind of accessories lower than 3 ft. or they'd be munchie snacks. I guess I was hoping for more inspiration.
   I did like his use of large paintings in small spaces to open up that one room. Beautiful style, but not a real how-to book. Show the problem, and show the solution. That's the kind of book I need.

5 comments about In the Arts and Crafts Style.

1. I am new to the arts and craft decorating style but absolutely adore it and I thought this book gave a really good feel for the interior decorating schemes in general, lots of photos showing repeating common motifs (?motives?) and furniture and also a section at the end showing houses that have used it in a modern sense. I think it is a really good, well presented book!! :)



2. I am a librarian and a woodworker and thus have access and interest in many books on this subject. "In the Arts and Crafts Style" is a beautiful book that is deserved of much praise. The color photography is as plentiful as it is beautiful. I appreciate that the subject matter for this book does not seem to be drawn from the same dozen houses that so many others have used (As much as I like them, how many times can we look at the same pictures of the Gamble House, or Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio?). The text in this book is very well written and conveys clearly what is so special about the subject matter. I was also very impressed with the excellent resource list given at the end of the book.
   
   If I had an axe to grind about this book it is that the best photographs of A&C furniture are not contained in the (relatively short) chapter on furniture, but rather they are scattered throughout other chapters. This is a minor irritation in an overwhelmingly well done book.
   
   I highly recommend this book for any collection relating to historic homes, furniture / interior design, and lovers of the Arts & Crafts lifestyle.



3. What a lovely book, for the A&C afficionado and the newbie alike. Dividing her content into Influences & Innovations; Hallmarks of the Style; Furniture; Objects and Accents; and Case Studies, Mayer presents a stunning and inspirational tour of homes and objects from the Arts and Crafts Movement. My sister gave me this when she realized I loved the style, and I nearly wept. How amazing to have someone understand your passions!
   
   The only disappointment in this book is the inclusion of a case study "American Gothic," which highlights an anti-A&C aesthetic with a profusion, Victorian-aesthetic in its genesis, of tiles, metalwork, and pottery, that Stickley, Voysey, et al. would have abjured. Still, this departure from the style's reason for being serves to remind us of how valuable that reason was.



4. An arts and crafts website recommended this book as the place for beginners in the movement. Following their lead, we purchased the book and have not regretted it.

   The advice is true. This is excellent background for the movement, giving it a skeleton which can be used to hang more and more on, including sources, wonderful photographical examples, and resources. We're finding it is desirable and so, so useful to restoring our bungalow to have a wealth of books on hand such as these to give ideas for restoration and decorating.




5. This book has a wonderful compilation of ideas, rooms and history to inspire one to run out to the antique mall. The details of every type of room done in this fashion gives a wealth of ideas for bringing this style into your own home.

3 comments about With House in Hand...Organize Your Decorating: A Step-By-Step Planner for Home or Office.

1. There are a lot of organizational books on the market, some to help you get rid of clutter, some to help you organize your clutter into essential documents on file at your fingertips, some with places to write info about all types of rooms you have leaving lots of pages blank because you don't have certain rooms in your house that other people may have like a game room or sauna, but for the average homeowner, THIS book is all you need.
   
   First of all, you get to 'name' your own rooms so there's no wasted space! You can label the pages in order of the flow of your house, so if your dining room is right next to your living room, the pages can be labeled that way, and the paint or carpet samples for each room will be close enough together in your book so that you're not flipping back and forth all the time. That alone means the book is much more relavant to you than most books on the market & if you want to include exterior features, or landscaping you can DO that quickly and neatly just by writing in the appropriate title on the next page.
   
   The ABSOLUTELY BEST feature is that EVERY page has a big pocket for receipts, for magazine pictures you've pulled showing what you've done or what you'd like a remodeling project to look like, paint chips, photos, etc. For instance, I once found a picture in a magazine of an exterior doorway I wanted, with some modification, to use on the interior of an area we want to remodel. That was 14 years ago. Try holding onto a picture from a magazine for 14 years without losing it or damaging it! I DID, because I knew right where I'd put it -- I'd placed it in the pocket flap on the 'Future Loft' page, where it would eventually be the entrance door to our loft. Trying to tell a contractor how the door I wanted differed from hundreds of other mission-style doors on the market today would have been impossible without that picture to show the details of what I wanted in my door!
   
   On top of the pockets being useful, each pocket has a grid where you can measure off and sketch your room -- you can sketch a floor plan or a wall with a window or several sketches if you want, it's up to you to use it however it will best suit your circumstances. And the pockets are sturdy enough to hold a LOT of loose pieces of paper, samples, etc. I carried a sort of thin sample of a brick around to match a color for a number of months! Now the brick DID cause some wear and tear on the pocket, but just being able to have it handy was GREAT! It meant I didn't lay it down somewhere in a store and leave it there. I reinforced the pocket with some tape and away I went with my brick sample!
   
   If you're insistent on neat and tidy records, you might want to take some posterboard, cut it to fit the pocket, then staple your receipts or paint chips or whatever you decide you want to keep in your pockets to the posterboard so you can have a flipchart of information that you keep in the pocket, in an organized fashion. Pull out the posterboard, and just flip over to the item you're looking for! If you're REALLY anal about keeping things neat, use a photo refill page inside each pocket and slip your samples, swatches or pictures into the photo refill page so that you can pull out just one sample instead of pulling out the whole page if you want to.
   
   My current book bulges to about 6" thick--and that's without the brick sample--because I've used it to keep remodeling ideas I WANT to do at my fingertips! I'm getting a new one now to track what I've actually done up to this point, and to get us through the remodeling we'll be doing this next year -- we're finally to the point financially where we can do most of what we want (I've been told by a couple of contractors that we should just move to a bigger place, but we'll have everything we need right here, once we remodel a few areas!) and I'll have everything recorded as it's done, in my new book, so it will be complete when the remodeling is done.
   
   Eventually I can pass it on to new owners, when we can no longer take care of ourselves here and decide to sell, and it will help them to either freshen up what we did with the exact color code of paint, know the sizes of each space if they want to remodel, or keep track of their own swatches and chips if they decide to remake certain rooms!
   
   The white plastic 'tooth' binding is wonderful because the book lies flat and expands some if you need extra room like I do!
   
   This is the most appropriately named book I've seen in a loooooonnnnggg time -- "house in hand" is exactly what it is and "peace of mind" is what it provides!!!



2. When I first moved into my home I didn't know where to start in decorating. This was long before HGTV, Trading Spaces, or other design shows. This planner was invaluable in helping me get everything together. I was able to take it with me to fabric stores, paint stores, etc. All my swatches, paint numbers and wallpaper samples were together, window measurements were readily available, as well as listings of painters, plumbers, appliance manufacturers, putting everything in one place. When I decided to move, it also helped. All room sizes were listed, as well as information on all appliances, as well as major renovations I had done to the house. My real estate agent said it helped in selling. And now, it's with the new owners.



3. I bought this book during a remodel of our home. I still have it and use it for all my decorating. The pocket pages are the best for storing samples and the grid design is great for showing your room to perspective contractors. If you take it with you shopping, you will have all your information and color swatches with you for every project. It makes a wonderful gift for a new home owner, or for that first apartment.