The Comfortable Home: Stylish Ideas for Living [Hardcover]

Jessica Elin Hirschman (Author), Candace Ord Manroe (Author), Candie Frankel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1997

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: MetroBooks (NY); Later Edition edition (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567994946
• ISBN-13: 978-1567994940
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,388,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Yes indeed, do look elsewhere...., July 25, 2003

By 

"fhoffman86" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Comfortable Home: Stylish Ideas for Living (Hardcover)

I assume that the reviewer who called this book "superb" is a friend of the authors or works for the publisher. Like so many interior design books on the market, this one has lots of gorgeous pictures of gorgeous rooms, but little that is practical in terms of execution or upkeep by real people (e.g., an entire porch done in acres and acres of draped and shirred high-end fabric). The text is mostly descriptive and doesn't say what I really want to know, like "how did they do that?" "how much did it cost?" and "who keeps it clean?" In fact, the charming cover picture notwithstanding, the rooms shown are far more often opulent than they are comfortable-looking. Do real people actually live in them or are they just designer showcase rooms? Perhaps more egregiously, this also seems to be a hastily produced book. For example, somehow the editors and authors all failed to notice a glaringly misplaced caption within the first few pages. There are lots of imprecisions in the text: commonplaces like pitched-roof spaces in attics and stained-glass family crests in Tudor-style leaded windows are described by the authors as "unusual" or "unique." Crocheted textiles are called "woven" and marble slabs are called "large bricks." I know this kind of verbal carelessness is frequently to be found in design magazines, but shouldn't the standards be higher for writing books? If, like me, you enjoy looking at pictures of creatively done rooms to steal a design idea here or there, then go to the bookstore, flip through this book, then put it back on the shelf. Anyone with the financial resources to actually recreate and maintain such rooms can presumably also afford (and will absolutely need) their own design team; they don't need this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Look elsewhere for style and comfort, December 15, 2002

By 

Amy Hilliard (VA, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Comfortable Home: Stylish Ideas for Living (Hardcover)

I wonder if the other reviewer and I looked at the same book. I found the photos to be outdated. The style was a by way of the 80's and I'm not talking cool retro. So, I did not find the book to be very inspiring. I was hoping for it to have more of an Arts and Crafts feel, or be along the lines of the Not So Big House series, which I recommend instead of this book.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb addition to an interior design reference collection, May 4, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Comfortable Home: Stylish Ideas for Living (Hardcover)

The Comfortable Home: Stylish Ideas For Living is a beautifully produced and illustrated, invaluable reference resource for interior decorators, redecorators, and do-it-yourself householders. With its accessible formate, stunning photography, and reader friendly text, The Comfortable Home offers hundreds of original ideas that will engender creativity and make home and apartment decorating fun, easy, and affordable. The Comfortable Home is organized into four main sections: Porches & Sunrooms; Family Rooms; Bedrooms; and Babies/Children Rooms. Highly recommended for personal, professional, and community library interior decoration and design reference collections..