Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic Treasure Hunting and Decorating Guide - Softcover

Ashwell, Rachel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062267442 ISBN 13: 9780062267443

Publisher: Harper Paperbacks, 2013

Synopsis

It helps the healthiness both of body and soul to live among beautiful things.
—William Morris, 1882

Shabby Chic—the rich, practical, and time-worn style created by one of the world's top designers, Rachel Ashwell, mixes new and gently used items to create original, refined designs. In Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic Treasure Hunting & Decorating Guide, Rachel takes you on a tour of flea markets and secondhand shops to give you a behind-the-scenes look at her process for finding vintage treasures—materials, furniture, and decorations—so that you can design a Shabby Chic home.

As Rachel reveals, the Shabby Chic principles—comfort, function, and beauty—mixed with a dash of imagination and courage, and an understanding of how to spot a fabulous buy, will allow you to create a home that is beautiful, comfortable, and inviting. A place where children's dinners are served on mix-and-match antique plates at a table covered with lace from a renovated curtain set. A space where fresh flowers stand in antique jugs, complementing furniture covered in soft white denim.

This gorgeous volume will teach you how to recognize beauty in often overlooked places. The photographs and step-by-step guidance featured inside make it easy, fun, and affordable to create the kind of breathtaking, practical home you've always dreamed of.

About this title

Review:

By now most readers even marginally interested in home decorating are familiar with the democratic principles of decorating elaborated in Rachel Ashwell's first book, Shabby Chic: namely, that well-made vintage furniture and home accessories can add a cozy grandeur to your home, even if the paint's a little thin or the fabric a bit faded. In her second book, Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic Treasure Hunting & Decorating Guide, Ashwell shares her processes, from a stall-by-stall description of a flea market trip to pictures of her design boards scattered with photos, fabric swatches, and paint chips. Ashwell doesn't skimp on details: she tells how to decide on a fair bargaining price at flea markets, how to clean old items without harming them, and (step by step) how one ugly glass-fronted cabinet topped with old linoleum and mismatched shelf paper became an attractive, roomy storage piece that houses her daughter's books, dolls, and bedding. This is a friendly, intimate book in which Ashwell shares pictures of her own home and those of her friends--some of whom live in roomy beach houses and some of whom live in 450-square-foot cottages, and all of whom use the main Shabby Chic concepts of comfort, function, and beauty in deciding which objects to share their space with. Fans of the original Shabby Chic will find this follow-up every bit as useful, attractive, and accessible.

About the Author:

Rachel Ashwell is the creator of the Shabby Chic style. In 1989, she founded the Shabby Chic home furnishing stores and then later, the Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic Couture stores. She is the author of Shabby Chic, Rachel Ashwell's Shabby Chic Treasure Hunting and Decorating Guide, The Shabby Chic Home, and Shabby Chic: The Gift of Giving.

Amy NeuNsinger is a photographer whose work has appeared in numerous magazines and advertising campaigns ranging from beauty to travel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0062267442
• ISBN 13: 9780062267443
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224