Outdoor Decorating and Style Guide: Fresh Ideas and Inspiration for Making Beautiful Outdoor Rooms - Hardcover

Greer, Nora Richter; Morgan, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1564968286 ISBN 13: 9781564968289

Publisher: Rockport Pub, 2003

Synopsis

Today’s gardeners are cultivating a new level of comfort. They don’t just want to furnish their outdoor living space; they want to decorate it to reflect personal style and taste. But how do you create the equivalent of the family "great room" in the open air?

The Outdoor Decorating and Style Guide is the ultimate how-to guide for applying the principles of interior design—for furnishings, accessories, lighting, color, flooring, and walls—to the great outdoors. This comprehensive guidebook takes readers step by step through the entire design process, helping readers with visualizing the desired type of outdoor room; choosing the materials, colors, and furniture that work best with a preferred style; and arranging, decorating, and putting it all together. Full-color photos depict a variety of outdoor rooms, from romantic porches to formal patios, and from exotic huts to elegant garden rooms, with descriptive advice on achieving each look.

From coordinating colors to garden palettes and choosing weather-resistant fabrics for outdoor seating, this savvy guide shows how to transform any garden room or backyard living space into a fabulous outdoor haven.

Nora Richter Greer is an architecture and design critic. She has written for numerous magazines and newspapers and has contributed to and authored more than a dozen books on architecture, urban design, and interior design. She resides in Washington, D.C.

About this title

About the Author

Nora Richter Greer is an architecture and design critic. She has written for numerous magazines and newspapers and has contributed to and authored more than a dozen books on architecture, urban design, and interior design. She resides in Washington, D.C.

Reviews

According to Greer's richly illustrated how-to, the principles that guide the creation of livable, elegant and well-appointed inside spaces are equally applicable to the world outside. "Like the interior of your home, this is your personal space and can be as peaceful and tranquil-or as lively-as you like," the author declares. Beginning with basic design concepts, such as the use of proportion, balance, and scale, Greer (Architecture Transformed) quickly moves on to more creative aspects of crafting an outdoor room. She enumerates a variety of thematic décor ideas, such as the "romantic" and the "exotic," and explores the uses of gazebos and sheds and the proper control of lighting outdoors. Finally, her book offers six brief profiles in outdoor living, from a coastal home with a garage door that opens onto the beach, to a stucco Spanish Revival house with open-air fireplace. Overall, Greer offers a multitude of good ideas for the creative use of the yard or the porch, though most of the insight derives from the copious photographs reproduced. For browsing and brainstorming, this encouraging tome will prove helpful to anyone looking for comfort outside as well as in.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Rockport Pub
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1564968286
• ISBN 13: 9781564968289
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 144