Living In Style Without Losing Your Mind - Hardcover

Pasanella, Marco

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684850478 ISBN 13: 9780684850474

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2000

Synopsis

Citing the inability of most people to live lifestyles touted in magazines, a guide to transforming living spaces based on realistic budgets offers artistic advice while arguing that an open mind and individual passion is all that is needed to design a distinctive interior..

About this title

Review:

Living in Style Without Losing Your Mind isn't the usual tips-and-tricks guide to decorating your home. Author Marco Pasanella attempts the nearly impossible: to define style in order to help homeowners understand the difference between the stylish and the merely trendy. It's a Herculean task, but Pasanella's approach is truer to the real meaning of style than that of many other interior design books.

Pasanella eschews gimmicky style tips and doesn't believe everyone should adhere to one mode of decorating. "Style is important. A style is not." Instead, he urges homeowners to look to room functions as guides to decorating. Because spaces in the home are generally used for gathering (e.g., the living room or kitchen) or retreat (such as a bedroom or bathroom), Pasanella holds that homeowners should design a space with its underlying use or dynamic in mind to help them make wise choices. Above all, rooms must be comfortable and reflect their inhabitants. "True individuality comes from honesty, not 'creativity,'" says Pasanella.

He addresses some common design mistakes--for example, falling on the wrong side of the fine line between simple and spartan or cozy and cluttered, as well as the faux pas of making everything match or trying to be cool. He discusses options for home offices and computers, relevant but routinely ignored topics in other design books. Pasanella's abstractions on style can be somewhat vague or overly didactic themselves ("To be really stylish, you need a touch of bad taste"). But overall, he does an admirable job of defining a nebulous concept and giving homeowners the confidence and skills to trust themselves when decorating their homes. --Kris Law

About the Author:

Marco Pasanella is a designer, writer, teacher, and photographer. His design work ranges from a rocking chair in the White House, housewares in the Smithsonian, and exclusive hotels and swanky interiors across the country. These and other projects have been documented widely in the national media as well as many European publications. In 1990 he founded the Pasanella Company, now the Polenta Group, a multidisciplinary design ?rm. Educated at Yale University, he teaches at Parsons School of Design. He lives in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0684850478
• ISBN 13: 9780684850474
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200