Peace at Home: Simple Solutions for Serene Rooms - Hardcover

Pegrum, Juliet

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0811839923 ISBN 13: 9780811839921

Publisher: Chronicle Books, 2003

Synopsis

Peace at Home reveals the principles for creating truly relaxing rooms through beautiful photographs, inspiring wisdom from Eastern philosophies, and practical design advice. Taking readers through each room in the home, author Juliet Pegrum shares the basic design elements that combine to create harmony, simplicity, and ease. For example, in the bedroom, light and texture play essential parts. Pegrum illustrates how softness can be maximized through the use of natural fibers, bountiful pillows and cushions, and plush surfaces; and how light is dimmed or muted for a restful effect. In the living room, she shows how careful selection and placement of furnishings create a welcoming flow and a convivial ambiance. Warm and inspiring photographs of havens of all types speak to apartment dwellers and homeowners alike. For anyone who strives to create a soothing retreat from the outside world, Peace at Home shows the way.

About this title

About the Author

Juliet Pegrum is a New York based designer who runs her own home furnishings company. A devotee of Tibetan Buddhism, she has spent much of her life in India, studying and teaching yoga and working to preserve the textile crafts of Rajasthan.

Reviews

The world is a barrage of stress and anxiety, goes the premise of this New Age-y book on interior design, and the home is a peaceful sanctuary for relaxation and contemplation. Drawing on the ancient Indian art of architecture and design called Vastu, which proposes a symbiotic relationship between house and self, Pegrum leads the reader through a series of design-applications-cum-mental-exercises meant to induce tranquility and balance in the spirit. In the living room, the author proposes ornamentation such as tribal masks or silk screens from China, and matter pulled from all five raw elements (ether, air, water, fire and earth). "By bringing representation of these elements into the living room," she writes, "we help balance them within our bodies, achieving inner and outer harmony." Replete with such vague mystical advice, the book largely seems to favor clean, stripped down environments, using natural fibers and Eastern accents to give a feeling of careful placement and simplicity of purpose: think new, mid-range, pan-Asian restaurant.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811839923
• ISBN 13: 9780811839921
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176