Home Design Guide - Softcover

Whether you're a virgin homeowner anxious to make your decorating mark or a seasoned veteran ready to remodel, designing your special home can be overwhelming to say the least. Barty Phillips's Home Design Guide will keep your enthusiasm from turning to frustration with "inspirational ideas and hard information, checklists, cheap solutions and practical projects," all expertly organized in a durable--a vinyl cover no less!--and highly attractive guide. Phillips opens with a thoughtful and informative look at the big design picture, then attacks the house room by room in section 1, concentrating on one room per chapter and offering a thorough discussion of the space's unique set of challenges and the structural and decorative options available to not only meet those challenges but create the room of your dreams. Clever budget ideas appear at the end of each chapter--"for your bedroom, try sheeting by the yard which is much cheaper than ready-made sheets and only needs hemming"--as well as design checklists chock full of small but important details--"is the bed where you can reach all sides easily for making it?" "If the room is not carpeted, is there a warm rug to put your feet on?" A chapter entitled "A Short Guide to Interior Styles" rounds out this section, offering a brief introduction to popular styles--arranged alphabetically and categorized as "historic" (with dates) and "timeless" (regional or national). Section 2, entitled "Choosing and Using," examines certain materials and the effects you can produce with them, including wood, textiles, wallpaper, and plaster moldings. Included here are straightforward projects suitable for even the novice designer. Section 3 is full of facts, including a glossary; a bibliography; an address list of useful organizations, stores, and suppliers; and a list of measurement conversions. With full-color photographs that appear throughout--a great help for visualizing the creative possibilities to be found in any "problem" room--the Home Design Guide is the perfect tool for organizing your designer dreams. --Stefanie Hargreaves