First Digs: The Quasi-Adult's Guide to Decorating with Style---Without Blowing Your Budget [Paperback]

Yee-Fan Sun (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 2006

Good-bye dorm, so long mom and dad, and hello new digs!  Whether your rent, buy, or share your first home or apartment, getting it to look great without spending a lot of money can be a challenge.  Yee-Fan Sun comes to the rescue with this engaging guide to decorating, refurbishing, and repurposing so you can leave those milk crate bookshelves and sagging futons behind.  Packed with DIY solutions and guidance on how to personalize your new home, First Digs covers everything you need to know to decorate, organize, and maintain a cool, comfortable space that reflects your own unique style.
 
First Digs features:
·        Guidelines on how to prioritize and allocate a miniscule budget
·        Savvy bargain-hunting advice
·        How to spruce up home furnishings
·        Tips on painting like a pro
·        Illustrations throughout
·        DIY projects for lighting, slipcovers, window treatments, wall hangings, and more!
 
Learn how to make the move into your first home a little easier, much more creative, and a lot of fun!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sun, founder of digsmagazine.com, a "home & living guide for the post-college, pre-parenthood, quasi-adult generation," compiles her design and decorating knowledge in this nifty book that deserves to be on the short list of college graduation presents. Sun rushes through pre-move-in decisions (go solo or find a roommate? Live in sin? What's more important-location or size?) before plunging into a bevy of budget-minded decorating tips. Some of the information, like shopping at thrift stores and estate sales, is common sense, but little tips like bringing a blanket, bungee cord and rope to ensure large items make it home in one piece set the book apart. It's chapter four that will end up the most dog-eared, as it's home to a multitude of tips on thoughtfully decorating apartments: finding focal points, paring down to the essentials and planning it out on paper first will all be of tremendous help for novices. By artfully walking the line between open-mindedness and a knowledge of one's own decorating style, those following Sun's advice will be rewarded with an affordably decorated, unique and comfortable home.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Back Cover

Good-bye dorm, so long mom and dad, and hello new digs!  Whether your rent, buy, or share your first home or apartment, getting it to look great without spending a lot of money can be a challenge.  Yee-Fan Sun comes to the rescue with this engaging guide to decorating, refurbishing, and repurposing so you can leave those milk crate bookshelves and sagging futons behind.  Packed with DIY solutions and guidance on how to personalize your new home, First Digs covers everything you need to know to decorate, organize, and maintain a cool, comfortable space that reflects your own unique style.
 
First Digs features:
·        Guidelines on how to prioritize and allocate a miniscule budget
·        Savvy bargain-hunting advice
·        How to spruce up home furnishings
·        Tips on painting like a pro
·        Illustrations throughout
·        DIY projects for lighting, slipcovers, window treatments, wall hangings, and more!
 
Learn how to make the move into your first home a little easier, much more creative, and a lot of fun!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; First Edition edition (May 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312347286
• ISBN-13: 978-0312347284
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,670,600 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for budget-minded decorators!, May 8, 2006

By 

KirstenL4W - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Digs: The Quasi-Adult's Guide to Decorating with Style---Without Blowing Your Budget (Paperback)

First, let me start by saying that I thought there would be more pictures in this book. I'm very visual and that's usually what drives me to buy decorating books. But that alone did not distract me, and since it's mentioned numerous times in the book that the author is also the editor of Digsmagazine.com, I can pop in there to augment all the great information in this book.

Usually books about decorating, which is such a visual thing to begin with, have lots of pictures and very little text. If there is a lot of text in the book, it's usually pretty boring and hard to stay focused. Not so with this book. Yee-fan Sun's style of writing is very conversational and easy to read. The best part is that unlike other books on budget decorating or appealing to the newly free, she takes into consideration that many of us on a budget are renting and usually aren't allowed to make changes to our pads. Yee-fan provides plenty of easy, inexpensive, and temporary ways to inject personality into the cookie cutter apartments that we live in. Since she's lived all over the world on a starving student's budget, Yee-fan really knows what she's talking about.

It's a lot of reading, but if you want to give your place a huge dose of personality without blowing the budget, this is the book for you!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars look cool for cheap, February 11, 2006

By 

Reader in NoVa (Fairfax, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Digs: The Quasi-Adult's Guide to Decorating with Style---Without Blowing Your Budget (Paperback)

Yee-fan really knows what she is talking about... too many style books offer great ideas, but their idea of a "budget" includes $200 pillows. Buy this book for amazing style on a realistic budget!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The only problem is she didn't write it 12 years ago!, June 15, 2006

By 

Pollyhyper "pollyhyper" (Milford, DE United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Digs: The Quasi-Adult's Guide to Decorating with Style---Without Blowing Your Budget (Paperback)

This is the book I wish I'd had when I was just starting out on my own, and the book I wish I'd thought to write after moving house about 10 times since I first started college!
Yee-Fan does a great job of fitting all kinds of information into this book, and speaks in a voice that is easy to read but not patronizing to first-time renters. She's been there, done that, and wants to pass all that she's learned, good and bad, on to you!
Everyone has lived in the white cardboard-box style apartment, and signed the lease that says "no painting, no restoration, no personality." This book has a TON of ways to get around all that and really make a rental your own. Once you read this book from cover to cover, you can satisfy your need for more by culling through countless articles on the website.
I'll be buying a copy for every person I know that moves out on their own.