Essential Home: Putting Together Your Perfect Home

Just as the carefully planned wardrobe can be supplemented year after year, the well-edited home contains the essential building blocks for enduring chic. Essential Home helps you make informed decisions about what to put in your home, and shows how the right choices can streamline your style and save money. Interiors expert Judith Wilson starts by taking a look at the classic big buys-the white sofa, the antique armoire, the designer dining chairs-then room by room, puts together a framework of practical essentials and luxury items that will last for years. Essential Home gives you the flexibility to experiment with fashionable accessories or unusual one-of-a-kind pieces. With lavish photographs by Jan Baldwin, this invaluable resource gives you all the information you need to lay the foundation for a beautiful home.

The initial planning-selecting wall colors and flooring-is the easy part. Far harder are the decisions that arise after the paint has dried. What should go into each room? Which items will endure, give most pleasure? What's the most practical combination of furniture? When should you scrimp and when should you spend? Key items, from chairs to ceramics, need careful planning. Get these choices right and you'll be equipped with decorative building blocks for a flexible home, one that evolves with fashion and your own changing tastes. There's no blueprint for the contents of the perfect home, but Essential Home will help you devise your own unique formula, creating a clean canvas on which to build, reducing the risk factor of future purchases and giving you freedom to experiment with fashion and contemporary buys.

Judith Wilson is a former decorating editor on "Homes & Gardens whose books include "Teen Zone", "Children's Spaces", "Family Living, Babies' Rooms, and "The Well-Organized Home" (all Ryland Peters & Small)