Decorating Details: Projects and Ideas for a More Comfortable, More Beautiful Home : The Best of Martha Stewart Living

Building on the success of How to Decorate, this new companion volume from the editors of Martha Stewart Living magazine offers a host of elegant and practical projects for putting the finishing touches--from bookcases to lamp shades to pillows--on the perfect home.

When you look past the cover of Martha Stewart's latest effort, you find it's not all about framing your fern collection. (Whew!) It is, however, about defining your home's style using accessories that look expensive but (generally) aren't. There's some very practical and budget-conscious advice here in the chapters about pictures, tables and stools, lamps and shades, shelves, screens and mirrors, and pillows and throws. You can disguise the humble origins of inexpensive adjustable shelving by adding wood trim around the edges and painting everything, including the metal standards and braces, to match the wall color. You can break up or conceal space with screens you make yourself from plain wood panels or old windows. You can update small outdoor tables with do-it-yourself mosaic tile that goes on in one piece. You can, of course, make a large framed entryway mirror from an $800 slab of mirror glass, as Martha does-- but really, no one will check your bank statement to see how much you spent, and it will reflect just as clearly with inexpensive hardware-store mirror glass. Some of the best projects are for sofa pillows, bed and table linens, and lampshades. Though Martha's voice isn't much in evidence in the text, her concepts are definitely here: the instructions are simple and straightforward and the look clean, comfortable and unfussy. --Barrie Trinkle