Customer Reviews

Celerie Kemble: To Your Taste: Creating Modern Rooms with a Traditional Twist

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Class bias ("Look to your parents' decorating style" - what, TV trays and laminate furniture?) notwithstanding, Celerie Kemble has written an eminently readable, relatable, and practical guide to beautiful design. From the general - create an interesting conversation between the pieces in a room - to the specific - side tables should be 2 inches below arm height - Kemble educates us and inspires us in equal parts. She's provided a guide to great rooms that helps a novice visually dissect the elements. I know what I like, but now I know how to recreate what I like in my own home. This book is a gem and a keeper for reference forever.

rife with eloquent & entertaining prose, this decorating guide is just that...a guide. unlike many other decorating books, this one combines the inspiration of beautiful photography & the practicality of an explanation. if you're interested in finding a book that explains why designs work & why others don't...this is the book for you. of the many, many decorating books i own, this one is the absolute best.

if i could give it 6 stars, i would.

Elegant but No Dilettante
By JULIE SCELFO
Published: October 29, 2008
The New York Times
It would be easy to dismiss Celerie Kemble. First off, her name is Celerie. Then there's her privileged childhood in Palm Beach, and the fact that she joined an interior design firm founded by her mother. But that would mean missing out on the talent that put her at the forefront of a new group of society designers and that is evident throughout "Celerie Kemble: To Your Taste" ($45; Clarkson Potter). A tiny nine-point font was used to fit all her advice into the 256-page volume, which shows, step by step, how to design rooms that are elegant and personal. It isn't often a decorating book includes a tribute to artisans and an apologia, but these sections, along with what must be Ms. Kemble's genetic predisposition toward humor (her mother named her Celerie, after all), are what make the book so engaging.

I really enjoyed this book, not only for the great pictures and ideas, but text is really funny.

It sounds like Celerie is talking right to me and there are so many rooms to look at - many very different styles, so all kinds of inspiration and advice about practical issues.

My favorite was about hiding TV's because a few methods I hadn't seen before! Also, there are sections on pets and kids with pretty good advice. I can't believe one of her clients bought a sofa to match her dogs hair color but hey- looks like celerie has all sorts of different clients (and I like some spaces a lot more than others), but that flexibility is probably what makes her a good decorator and source for ideas!

Definitely buy this book!!!

This is the only interior design book you'll ever need, and I have pretty much read them all. I appreciated that Celerie Kemble was extremely specific about the how-to's of taking measurements, scale, mixing high and low, and developing a lifelong approach to finding beautiful, cherished things to personalized your space. She is humble enough to acknowledge that not everyone is going to like every room she's ever done, and that is so refreshing.

I bought To Your Taste in a local boutique store, not knowing much about Celerie. I'm thrilled to have made that impulse-buy decision. I just completed the book and I've savored every word and picture in it, pausing to reflect how I could apply Celerie's tips and wisdom to my own design projects at home. I found her sense of humor entertaining, her tips practical and the pictures inspiring. It was a wonderful experience! I look forward to Celerie's next book :-)

Based on the recommendation of a friend in the interior design industry, we bought this book for some practical advice as we prepare to redo our NYC apartment. We have found it to be the most enjoyable and practical home design books we've ever run across. "To Your Taste" is filled with gorgeous photos and sound advice. (The book itself is so good-looking that it could the first step towards a newly-redesigned living room or library as a prominent book on your coffee table!) Ms. Kemble presents an approach towards interior design that is relaxed, personal, unpretentious, and fun. Enjoy!

I might well be predisposed to love this book, but that aside - this is a fantastic guide for anyone who knows little about good design and wants to learn as well as for those who are design mavens who want to indulge their passion.To Your Taste is both accessible and sophisticated, and can be read on many levels. Celerie comes across as authentically funny, warm, and wise and her advice is timeless and usable - even if you find yourself in a ranch house on the outskirts of a barren suburb. You can have a beautiful house!

"Trying to clean up after a dismal 2 A.M. flight ordeal with my fourteen-month-old son, I hastily drew a lukewarm bath in the tiny tub of our grim motel room. As I lay shivering in eight inches of water, squinting to block out the fluorescent lighting, and holding my sick, travel weary baby, I was blinded by a sudden flash, and then heard laughter. My husband had snapped a picture of the two of us mid-soak, our flesh pale and shriveled against the margarine-colored plastic tub and shower curtain. He threatened to send the image to the editors at Harper's Bazaar, who had just published a particularly flattering photo spread that had me blushing with excitement when I saw it at the airport. In the magazine's photo (taken by their skilled photographer, my appearance carefully styled by a hair and makeup team), my son and I were luxuriating in a marble tub, garlanded with holiday greenery and illuminated with warm, subtle, radiant lighting. My husband thought Harper's Bazaar should run his motel snapshot alongside its glossy images under the respective headlines Magazine Life and Real Life." excerpt from To Your Taste by Celerie Kemble.

Indeed Celerie Kemble has the Magazine Life we all dream of, and it is very well documented in the society pages, as well as in fashion and shelter magazines.

Celerie isn't her real name, of course: Cecilia Lacoste Kemble was raised in a prominent blue-blood family in Palm Beach, the daughter of an investment manager and noted Palm Beach interior designer Mimi Maddock McMakin. Born into this good Palm Beach family of means, she had a full and happy childhood, surrounded by beautiful people and beautiful things. Her motther Mimi McMakin started the Palm Beach firm Kemble Interiors, of which Celerie oversees its New York branch.

Celerie is gorgeous. She married a gorgeous (and apparently funny) man, a banker named Boykin Curry (also from a good family) and they have a toddler son Rascal (Ravenel Boykin Curry V), and a baby daughter Zinnia (Lacoste Kemble-Curry). Their dog is named Anchovie. It's like something out of a magazine!

She is also very talented, both as an interior designer, and as a writer.

This, her first book is large and glossy, and packed with loads of good decorating advice that considers how one lives, how one's taste changes and evolves over a lifetime, how a room can tell a story, etc. etc.

It's good stuff, though it has a certain unreality about it, a Real Life philosophy with Magazine Life results. Even the suggestion to match the color of your baby stroller to the front hallway if that's where it has to live, or matching the couch to the dog so dog hair shows less, has a certain kooky practicality that most people in real life would never dream of doing.

Celerie is one of a cadre of current decorators who make pretty rooms. They design like fashion designers. They know how to mix it up, from the expensive pair of Manolos to the thrift store dress. I like this way of designing. It can be very Real Life with Magazine Life results. This populist point of view is mostly what the magazines are publishing these days.

A person like Celerie to the manner born, with tons of advantages and connections seems to be a no brainer for getting a book published. However, at the end of the day, it is she Celerie, who has to deliver the goods. And so she does. Would she be so good if she were self taught and from the poorer working class side of the tracks? Probably so. There is a great tradition of society women turning into businesswomen decorators. And so it goes with Celerie. I wonder if it's a different kind of burden to live up to the expectations of a quirky name and one's social position.

This is a good book for the person who collects design books. It's a good book for a design student. It's a good book for society page readers. It's a good book to read, and to take a little trip to Magazine Life.
I recommend it whole heartedly.

I agree with another one-star review that I could not be more disappointed when I received this book, after reading all the positive reviews. Very few rooms featured in the book were inspiring, and some of the pictures were of low image quality (just plain blurry,) which is unacceptable in a published book on design.

I subscribe to a variety of magazines on interior design, including AD, Elle Decor, Met Home, and a few others. I can honestly say that any issue of any of these magazines contains much more inspiring photos than what's in this book. Hugely disappointed.

Lesson learned? Instead of using Amazon reviews as a sole guideline in my future book purchases, I will make a trip to my local B&N and make sure with my own eyes first!