5 comments about Domino: The Book of Decorating: A Room-by-Room Guide to Creating a Home That Makes You Happy.

1. I got Domino Mag for awhile and thought I'd get this book. It is just as impressive as the mag. Great book for anyone starting to do their own space or a interior designer reference.



2. This book finally made decorating fun and accessible for me. I was in total anguish before, and buy it as a gift for friends all the time. I especially love all the listings and resources in the back.



3. "Domino: The Book of Decorating" contains sensible, practical advice on how to create a room that matches *your* style. When it first came out a lot of people reviewed it poorly because it was a "rehash" of images previously shown in Domino magazine. Now that Domino is dead, I only wish the book had contained even more images so that I'd have them to refer back to.



4. Since I got this book at Christmas, I have read it cover to cover, put it away for a few days, picked it up again, re-read a chapter, put it away, picked it up, browsed through pictures, put it on the kitchen table, re-read another section...you get the picture. I cannot recall having EVER looked at the same book so many times. Thank you Deborah Needleman - may the gods strike down Conde Nast for cancelling Domino. It was a GEM!



5. I actually got this book and passed it along to my daughter. This book has great decorating ideas. My daughter has been pouring over the book ever since I gave it to her. She is sad that Domino Magazine is not longer being published.

3 comments about Suzanne Kasler: Inspired Interiors.

1. I purchased several design books this year, and this is by far the best. The style of Inspired Interiors is fresh, classic, timeless and never stuffy or overdone. The commentary is very easy-to-read, and offers straightforward, pragmatic advice. Whether you are looking for a gift, or want a good guide for yourself that looks lovely on the coffee table, you can't go wrong with this book.



2. I've been a fan of Suzanne Kasler for years. Her work is polished and refined, yet casual, relaxed and effortless. I had the privilage of working with her as a rep when I managed a trade-only showroom in Atlanta. She has phenomenal taste and her style is unique. Her work is definitely worthy of it's own book. Great job Suzanne, you've always inspired me!



3. I would recommend this one, especially if you have a transitional style of decorating. Very glamorous rooms with a good balance of femininity and splashes of color mixed with neutral tones.

5 comments about Style and Substance: The Best of Elle Decor.

1. WHAT IS BRILLIANT ABOUT THIS BOOK-- THE BEST OF A SUPERB MAGAZINE -- IS NOT JUST THE BEAUTIFUL PHOTOGRAPHY AND INVENTIVE INTERIORS BUT RATHER THE IDEA LIVING IN A PLACE THAT CAN CHANGE YOUR PERCEPTIONS ABOUT HOW WE USE OUR PERSONAL SPACES.
   
   "STYLE AND SUBSTANCE" HELPED ME DECONSTRUCT THE BEAUTY OF SPACE AND MY CONNECTION TO IT.
   
   BENEATH THE GLORIOUS BEAUTY OF THE BOOK, THERE ARE DEEP IDEAS THAT TAP INTO HOW ALL US HUMANS NEED A COMFORT SPACE -- INSTEAD OF CRAWLING INTO BED, PAINT THE ROOM AND BUY A RUG -- IT TRULY CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE -- BE BOLD
   
   BRAVO MARGARET RUSSELL --



2. Where on earth can a person with a keen eye for excellent home décor find libraries with rolling ladders, living rooms covered in sumptuous chinoiserie fabric, monochromatic bedrooms with spiral staircases, and dining room walls lacquered in persimmon red paint, all gathered together in one immensely stylish book? The answer, of course, is Style and Substance: The Best of Elle Décor.
   
   Style and Substance features hundreds of beautifully rendered photographs of the homes of designers, architects, antiques buyers, celebrities, and fashion executives. The contents is divided into public spaces and personal spaces, and further divided down by rooms. It is luxurious and makes no apologies for it, and whether a reader's taste in interior design is clean and modern or cozy and careworn, there is something here to inspire everyone. For the former there is Will Kopelman's home office on page 72, with its crisp white walls, glass-topped desk, and Bertoia wire chairs. For the latter, Julie Greenwood's kitchen on pages 116 and 117 will make even the most anti-materialistic of souls covetous, and it's no small wonder as to why: the antique French furniture and Italian chandelier are a sight to behold when contrasted with the exposed stone walls and floor.
   
   The title is in no way misleading. This is truly the best of Elle Decor. This book is a marvel and a wonder, and should be considered a must read for anyone interested in interior design.



3. Loved the pictures of the rooms in the book with the helpful design tips. I teamteach interior design in Connecticut through adult education to women and men who love design and don't know what to do with their homes. It's great to have Elle's editors select rooms from their magazine which they think are most stylish. This book is a good survey of recent design.
   
   However, I'd love to see Elle do at least two or three other books: one on rooms such as living rooms, bedrooms and dining rooms which have common elements: furniture, rugs, window treatments and then another book on kitchen and bathrooms that have more cabinetry, countertops, appliances.
   
   What my students and I would find most useful is a book solely on livingrooms with tips by interior designers and Elle's editors with gorgeous photography like this book has. Maybe your favorite livingrooms from the past 3 to 5 years from your magazine. I can't find enough beautiful design books with gorgeous stylish livingrooms. Livingrooms are arguably the room which is most public in a home and which utilize the most intensive interior design principles. The living room is the room above all others, I think, which is the most complex and challenging for our students to decorate. A book by Elle Decor focusing on livingrooms alone in various styles with tips would be marvelous to have in the future.



4. This really is the best of the best examples of style and substance. There are many different styles, but all of them have great flavor. There is a lot you can draw from in this book...or just enjoy it because it is FUN!



5. I bought this book to be given to a friend of mine for her birthday; unfortunately handling of the book during the shipping process was not as good as i would have hoped and the corners of the book arrived dented and squashed.

5 comments about Building Construction Illustrated.

1. Smooth transaction and great price. The packaging, however, is a little too much. I am not really sure why a used book was shipped in a big box filled with bits and pieces of styro foams. It's a little messy.



2. Great book. Lots of good building info and the images help you really visualise the building process.



3. I got this to help with some of the harder construction code requirements. Handy book to have if you get a building code book and need a bit more explanation. For instance, I was looking at foundations - it illustrated different types of foundation systems, support systems, footings, walls, foundations on different kinds of grades, etc. If you are a visual learner, definitely a must.



4. I thought the book was the 4th edition as the thumbnail( cover illustration). I was made me misunderstood. When i got a book I was so upset because it turned out different edition. I got 2nd edition.
   
   I am so disappoint for buy stuff online. If you are not sure about the cover book's illustration, please write which edition is it.



5. I bought this as required text book for my Architectural Course at College, it has been very useful converting my UK Construction industry terminology into USA terminology, easily understood and so many illustrations, recommended !

1 comments about American Modern.

1. Refreshing and inspirational. Does not disappointment. One of the best I have purchased in a while.

5 comments about House Beautiful Colors for Your Home: 300 Designer Favorites (House Beautiful Series).

1. I saw this book at a friend's house and came right home & ordered it. It's great because it actually tells you what colors are used in the pictures (what a concept!) and even though images in print are much different than the real color, it gives you a good idea.
   I love the designer's descriptions of the colors too! I've already used 2 of the colors that were shown & described & they're both great!



2. I absolutely love this book and have made far fewer color mistakes with its help! It has paid for itself many times over. I agree with the other reviewers who said that the chips in the book weren't a reliable guide, however, that's true with the chips from the paint store as well.
   
   I think the designers descriptions are a much more reliable guide. They often make comments such as:
   
   "Works in any light"
   "Brings light into dark rooms"
   "My favorite 'go to' neutral"
   "Has red undertones"
   "Has green undertones"
   
   House beautiful also has a great color tool on their website. Don't worry if it takes several tries to get the right color. Designers do the same thing! Don't give up until it feels just right to YOU!



3. I love HB and this book is exactly what I expected it to be. A compilation of the magazine feature of favorite colors. The book is a smaller size and contains page after page of paint swatches with the designer's description of the color. If you spend the time to read all the descriptions, be prepared to read the word "depth" a lot!



4. Choosing paint colors can be overwhelming and can feel like a full time job, so I LOVE this book because it has really helped me narrow down the field. I had ideas of what shade I wanted but just needed help sifting through the hundreds of shades available, this book has been really helpful in doing this. For example, I knew I wanted to paint my room a pale bluish-grey, and this book helped me determine which actual shade would be the best. I feel like I can trust that the decorators and designers have experience with which paint colors really seem to work the best and stand the test of time. I would not use the swatches printed on the pages of this book exclusively though- I don't believe it is intended to replace the real paint swatches you get from the paint store. You really need to go out and get the actual swatch of what you see in the book because it will look slightly different in paint than how it's printed on the page of a book. The book is more of a means to an end rather than trying to be the actual paint fan deck, if you know what I mean. It gives you ideas and the names of the colors, and then it's your job to go out, get the swatches, and paint swatches on your wall before committing to buying gallons of paint.



5. I love color. I am inspired by color. I love House Beautiful magazine, but this book is nothing like the magazine. I liked looking at different color chips in the book, but that's about it.
   
   Pictures of rooms were few and far between, mostly pictures of color chips. All the rooms illustrated are very traditional looking, no modern looking rooms at all.
   
   Also I was particularly interested in suggestions on how to combine colors. I have an open floor plan and would love to use paint as a visual (but harmonious) separator. There was nothing in the book to address color schemes.
   
   Hugely disappointing. The only reason I gave the book 2 stars instead of 1 is the "by room" color inspirations.

1 comments about More Not So Big Solutions for Your Home.

1. I was recently sent More Not SO Big Solutions for Your Home to review and I must say - I'm pleasantly surprised! As I typically review fiction, this was something new for me to read. Author Susanka knows what she's talking about, and has great suggestions for most people. Granted, since I don't own my small apartment, I can't heed some advice (such as adding windows, creating space and garage tips), but overall it offered some decent advice I'll try to use within my apartment.
   
   The first chapter, By Design, gives the basics of designing a house for those who actually own a house. Since I don't, we'll skip to section two. Room by Room gives new ideas for many basic rooms - such as rethinking a formal feel and designing the, so called, heart of the home. Attention to Detail again didn't help me much, as it focused on rooms that are too tall (apartments don't have that problem usually), fireplaces and more. Make it Personal was more my style, which featured color hints and how to make a house feel welcoming. Practical Matters answers a lot of my questions, such as how to deal with small bathrooms, where to put a TV, and getting creative with a small amount of space. The last chapter, Living in the Real World, gives hints of living with others, meeting neighbors and more.
   
   As mentioned, a lot of the advice I can't use, but I could see it being great for those who really wish to remodel a house. A lot of the advice is pricey, but more than likely worth it in the long run. Along with a load of advice, the book offers neat drawings and visuals for each technique. More Not So Big Solutions for Your Home is great for new home owners who wish to make the house their own.

5 comments about A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams.

1. I love Michael Pollan's books-- I think he's a great researcher and is very good at presenting that information. However, any time he writes about his own experiences this annoying voice and character emerges-- that of a geek, perhaps-- and it's definitely not someone you want to spend a few hours with.
   
   I'm in the architecture/building profession, so many things Michael discovers in this book about architecture and building is not news to me. That said, I LOVE reading about the design process and why clients/architects/contractors make decisions and what ensues from those decisions. I wish there could have been more of this, plus more drawings/photos and pictures. I loved every moment spent with the architect and the handyman/builder. I wish it could have been more of them, less whiny/geeky Pollan. I wish that Pollan had not tried to wax rhapsodic everytime he picked up a hammer or chisel. He tries too hard to build connections with Walden and devotes too many pages to his "knowledge" gleaned from a superficial study of architectural history and theory. (And a bizarre homage to the architectural skills of Thomas Jefferson, which really doesn't fit.) There are really two (or three), disjointed books here. This book could have been better written by the architect.



2. I picked up this book after reading Omnivore's Dilemma. This book is the Omnivore's Dilemma for architecture and building. I found it to give a fantastic overview of the history of architecture, the difficulties in translating the architect's plans into something realistic (paring things down to form over function), and the realities of making a structure from the ground up.
   This book however is not a manual of how to build. If you are interested in building or creating things out of scratch it will be very happy with this book. This might better be titled the philosophy of building.... a place of one's own.



3. I was astonished to see that there are *any* less than stellar reviews for this book, so let me speak in defense of Michael Pollan's sophomore effort: You Must Read This Book!
   
   For those who loved The Omnivore's Dilemma, this book describes the process by which the cradle of that great work was itself brought to life. As a person married to an author, and as a person who himself writes more than the average American, Pollan's process of articulating his own dreams (and fears) for his own writing house literally brought tears to my eyes, so profound his subject and so universal its truths. It is a brilliant synthesis of abstract and concrete--the construction of a physical space *so that* greater mental heights can be imagined and obtained.
   
   For those who celebrate the way that Pollan has helped us restore some measure of our own humanity by helping us reconnect with what is true about food (and by learning how to avoid what is false about edible food-like substances), let only those who are truly roofless cast the first stone against this book! For the rest of us, whether we own, rent, or live more transiently in some sheltering construct, this book teaches the truly multi-dimensional ways that dwellings come to be, and how the manifold relationships that condense into built forms continue to express those relationships, even to those who are not yet born.
   
   For those who love Pollan's ways with words, this book is full of fridge-worthy sentences and page-worthy paragraphs.
   
   For those who enjoyed meeting Joel Salatin in "Part III: Grass" of the Omnivore's Dilemma, in this book we meet the prototype from the building trade, Joe Benney. Indeed, I'd be willing to bet that without Joe's training in the manual arts, Michael would never have made it past the first handshake with Mr. Salatin of Polyface farms.
   
   For those who complain "this book is nothing new", fooey. Yes it was first published more than a decade ago, but as a book I had not read, it was new to me. The new paperback format is far more friendly to me and my traveling lifestyle. And the new preface provides an opportunity for Pollan to complete some factual and cultural arcs that were anticipated by the foundations he laid in 1997. (In that way, every finished building is really the start of a new, unimagined next building.)
   
   So...I loved it, and I suspect that if you have ever dreamed about building a place for your own dreams, you will love it, too!



4. I loved The Omnivore's Dilemna. I've read some of Pollan's essays. So I was excited to see that early in his writing career he had written a book about building his own tiny writing house, particularly since small architectural buildings are fascinating to me.
   
   Well, the book is boring! For the same reasons that The Omnivore's Dilemna was interesting: namely, that he integrates science, reason, knowledge with emotion. In The Omnivore's Dilemna, he explained the science and technology, and gave an in-depth overview of the many ways food gets from nature to your stomach. In contrast, A Place Of My Own is packed with filler consisting of homespun wisdom about the nature of place, or what he calls "what makes a place a place." I would be okay with 5 pages of that, but I'd say this boring discussion takes up most of the book. It infects everything.
   
   For "A Place Of My Own," I was expecting a book similar to Thoreau's chapter "Economy" in Walden. In some ways, it is. But it has a lot of BS. Essentially, Pollan hires a professional architect, who creates what is described as one of the most complicated one-room writing huts imaginable, and Pollan hires assistants, goes through building code processes, pours foundations, etc etc. Far from the process of dreaming up a little writing hut and building it over the summer. He's essentially building a minimal hut for daydreams and writing in a convoluted and commercial way.
   
   Along the way, he tries feng shui in an unbearable 5-page ordeal that describes him running down a hill to find the best river of chi. Most of the book reads like that. Countless pages are spent describing concrete, steel, and other products. At page 301, the book ends, and I was shaken. I had given hours and hours to that?
   
   If the book had been cut to a third of its present size, it would have been a lot better.
   
   Until this happens, you may not want to waste your time.



5. I have read several of Michael Pollan's books on food (Ominvore's Dilema, In Defense of Food, Botany of Desire). I thoroughly enjoyed them so I expected the same experience with this book. However, once I started reading it became evident that my enjoyment level would not be the same. This is a re-distribution of a book written early in his career and I suspect it was reprinted based on the popularity of his other, more recent works.
   
   The story itself could have been told with far fewer words. He spends entire chapters discussing windows, roofs, site selection, etc. Very boring.
   
   Buy this book as an aid to sleeping.

No comments about The Home Within Us: Romantic Houses, Evocative Rooms.

5 comments about Country Living 500 Kitchen Ideas: Style, Function & Charm.

1. The name said it all. If you can't get some good Ideas from this book you must be blind!



2. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this book! I love primitive decor and think it's hard to find books with this type of decorating ideas. We are hoping to soon be able to build our dream home and this book it FULL of gorgeous kitchens! This book is great if you are wanting to remodel or build new....endless possibilities and helpful hint throughout the entire book....500 ideas to be exact. Beautiful pictures and tons of inspiration..this book is a MUST HAVE! Country Living 500 Kitchen Ideas: Style, Function & Charm



3. This book is a wonderful resource book. It has, literally, hundreds of absolutely gorgeous kitchen pictures. It would be a terrific resource for anyone redoing a kitchen. I love this book!



4. I'm a self-professed decorating book junkie, however, if they don't deliver the goods, back they go. This one delivers. It's thoughtfully organized, full of quality pictures, and not overly verbose. (A plus for those of us who really just want to look at the pictures!) I got about half way through the first pass, and had to jump up from my chair and completely redecorate my china hutch to look like it could be in the book. It didn't stop there, I spent the next hour and a half rearranging and decluttering all the surfaces in the entire kitchen. I bought the book to glean ideas for finishing my kitchen, but it even helped me to make do with what I have. It is not just full of $50,000 kitchen remodels, there's stuff in there for us regular people too. That's what I call "Inspirational".



5. This book is like a visual file of pictures of country or cottage kitchen ideas and features. Most of us know what we love in design when we see it, before we can put it into words. This book allows us to look at hundreds of attractive kitchens and their unique elements: cabinetry, counters, floors, sinks, wall colors, appliances,storage including pantries, islands, seating and accessories. It shows you how to create the mood or feeling you want your kitchen to create such as light, warm, inviting, colorful, cozy etc.
   
   This book will enable you to listen to your heart and begin to decide what's important to you in your kitchen design, and just as important, what you don't want. It will help you to your prioritize your resources--what you want to splurge on, where you can save. One great aspect of country and cottage design is that it doesn't get dated easily so this book should be useful for many years. Country and cottage style can be updated easily and often inexpensively, sometimes with just stylish accessories. If you love the warmth and texture of country kitchens, this is one of the best books I've seen on this style of kitchen design. I use it in a kitchen design class I team-teach with a kitchen design studio. My students love the book