It is finally spring and time to throw open the sashes and take in the fresh air. But it is also time for spring cleaning, to dust the baseboards, turn the mattresses, and wash those windows. Why not change things up a bit? Perhaps it is time to rethink the rooms entirely.
Styled : secrets for arranging rooms, from tabletops to bookshelves
Emily Henderson
747 /Henderson
Nonfiction, Home
Habitat : the field guide to decorating
Lauren Liess
747 /Liess
Nonfiction, Home
Lauren Liess’ Habitat uses nature as inspiration in home design. Her rooms are sophisticated, but also simple, comfortable, and achievable. Habitat works through explaining the basics of interior design, offering advice on lighting, color combinations, and accessories.
- Anne M
Elements of style : designing a home and a life
Erin T Gates
747 /Gates
Nonfiction, Home
"From the star blogger and designer Erin Gates, Elements of Style is a fresh, approchable interior design book that shows how designing a home is also a method of personal expression and self-discovery. Drawing on her 10 years of experience running her own design firm, Erin combines practical, honest design advice and gorgeous professional photographs and illustrations with personal essays about lessons she has learned while designing her own home and her own life--the first being: none of our homes or lives are perfect. She reveals the disasters she confronted in her own kitchen renovation, her struggles with anorexia, her epic fight with her husband over a plexiglass table, and her secrets for starting a successful blog. Organized by rooms in the home, Elements of Style is brimming with design inspiration and ideas as well as advice on practical matters like choosing kitchen counter materials, dressing a bed with pillows, hanging a curtain rod, and decorating a nursery without using pink or blue. The book also contains a Foreword by Erin's husband, Andrew, and an extensive Resource Guide"--
Need to surround yourself with a little more glamor? The Elements of Style by Erin Gates is your best bet. This book shows off Gates’ personality from beautiful, dramatic dining rooms to elegant, yet serene bedrooms. If you are interested in adding bold prints and lush rugs to your abode, this book is for you.
- Anne M
English decoration : timeless inspiration for the contemporary home
Ben Pentreath
747.0942 /Pentreath
Nonfiction, Home
In English Decoration, London-based architectural and interior designer Ben Pentreath presents a major new survey of the best of the English style. Eighteen homes, many of which have never been previously photographed, provide the source material for his wide-ranging investigation of this classic look. The houses include Ben's own homes in London and West Dorset, alongside those of Earls and artists, writers and architects, book designers and gardeners. The book is arranged room by room and Entrance Halls, Living Rooms, Kitchens and Dining Rooms, Bedrooms and Bathrooms are considered in turn, together with simple Rooms of Utility and spectacular Rooms of Display. The book begins with an essay on the English style in decoration and ends with a style directory, helping you to achieve the look wherever you live.
Perhaps you would prefer to go traditional? For this, check out Ben Pentreath’s English Decoration, inspired by British manor houses and country cottages. Some of Pentreath’s work isn’t practical for us Iowans; there is an entire chapter on “Rooms of Display.” Nonetheless, there are some beautiful color combinations and intriguing room arrangements
- Anne M
Novel interiors : living in enchanted rooms inspired by literature
Lisa Borgnes Giramonti
747 /Giramonti
Nonfiction, Home
The key to a stylish life is in the details, and the details are found in books! Giramonti presents a book-lover's guide to decorating, referencing sixty beloved works of literature. She shows how even the smallest elements, such as the blue china flowerpots perched on bright yellow stands depicted in The Age of Innocence, can bring life and personality to any room.
We are a UNESCO City of Literature and your style may be influenced by your favorite books. Novel Interiors by Lisa Borgnes Giramonti showcases rooms inspired by sixty different novels, including those by Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh, L. M. Montgomery, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Borgnes Giramonti finds passages describing chairs, plates, and linens and builds the rooms from there. For booklovers and design aficionados alike.
- Anne M
Henderson helps you determine your style and then provides tips on how to show off those design inclinations in your home. Styled doesn’t call for a complete overhaul. Small changes in rearranging furniture or adding a few elements like a rug or a lamp can go a long way to transform a room.
- Anne M