Home Therapy: Fast, Easy, Affordable Makeovers - Hardcover

Ward, Lauri

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399152962 ISBN 13: 9780399152962

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2005

Synopsis

Lauri Ward has been a "home therapist" to thousands through her books, articles, andmedia appearances for more than two decade. This inspiring guide takes readers into the real homes and lives of 25 of Lauri's clients to show a wide range of decorating challenges and the solutions that Lauri offered to meet their needs and expectations. Illustrated with more than 150 full-color and black-and-white before-and-after photos and floor plans, Home Therapy offers help in transforming living spaces for everyone from twenty-somethings to retirees, using the space and things they already have - and a budget they can afford.

About this title

About the Author

Lauri Ward, the author of Use What You Have® Decorating, is the founder of Use-What-You-Have® Interiors and the Interior Refiners Network®. She has appeared frequently on television, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS Evening News, ABC-TV News, and programs on Fox, Lifetime, HGTV, and CNBC. She has been featured in The New York Times, House Beautiful, Ladies’ Home Journal, and other newspapers and magazines. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

In this straightforward, practical guide to redecorating, Ward, founder of the interiors firm Use-What-You-Have, Inc., and author of Use What You Have Decorating, uses engaging real-life stories of home makeovers to demonstrate how to work with one's existing furniture, space and accessories to create great spaces. Diagrams, before and after photos, and bulleted lists that call out common decorating mistakes help to illustrate her points clearly—and give readers a peek inside other peoples' homes, appealing to the voyeur in everyone. Each chapter addresses a different decorating conundrum—moving to a smaller space, moving to a much larger space, dealing with an overstuffed home, childproofing, preparing to sell a home—and introduces the clients, their complaints, the diagnosis, the remedy and long-term recommendations. Descriptions of clients ("a leggy blonde with a huge, bright smile"; "a tall, slim man with boyish good looks") feel forced, but suggest the reality of the solutions described. (Oct. 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The design recycling movement has many names, including staging, interior refining, and using what you have. Ward, one of its major proponents, offers her ideas for the third time. Rather than expounding on color, design, and arrangement principles, she instead concentrates on 25 clients and their befores, afters, and longer-term solutions. Each represents a life event of some sort, whether it's a coast-to-coast move, a new career, the addition of pets, or the arrival of a baby. Challenges are introduced first, usually in the voice of the client; then they're shown in diagrams and photographs, with solutions revealed in the same manner. Most decorating issues can be summarized into a list of 10, including poor furniture placement, ineffective use of accessories, and incorrect lighting, among others. The [design] doctor is in. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0399152962
• ISBN 13: 9780399152962
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320