Mary Gilliatt's Interior Design Course (Decor Best-Sellers) [Hardcover]

Mary Gilliatt (Author)

Book Description

Series: Decor Best-Sellers | Publication Date: September 1, 2001

From choosing a color scheme to redesigning an entire house, Mary Gilliatt’s Interior Design Course provides a complete step-by-step road map for success.



This book is conveniently organized into two sections. Section One, The Basics, provides tested techniques for mastering the main elements of good design: lighting; color; texture and pattern; and scale and balance. It also includes a valuable overview of historical styles, providing the reader with a quick-reference catalog of common design influences.



Section Two, The Specifics, demonstrates an array of creative approaches for walls, windows, floors, and furnishings suitable for any type of room. Readers will discover how to use special paint finishes and fabrics to create exciting wall coverings; innovative ways to bring new life to blinds, curtains, screens, shutters, and other window treatments; tips for choosing the right type of furniture to complete a specific room; and finally, how to combine all these elements together to create a harmonious, one-of-a-kind living space.



Finally, the all-important Finishing Touches section demonstrates how to choose the accessories and extra details that help reflect a particular look or style. Plus, this remarkable guide is packed with lavish photography and clear, insightful text that make it easy for readers to utilize these very same no-fail techniques in their own homes.



Perfect for veteran decorators as well as novices decorating their first home, Mary Gilliatt’s Interior Design Course is the definitive one-stop guide for creating interiors that are beautiful, unique, and totally one’s own.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

It is difficult not to listen when the "First Lady" of design-made-simple talks. After all, with more than 30 books to her credit, as well as TV shows, print columns, and other professional accomplishments, Gilliatt has mastered the art of showcasing decorating tips in an easily accessible manner. Her method? First, she presents no haute-color photographs of rich and famous interiors. Instead, her plentiful illustrations concentrate on classic shapes with vivid but not phantasmagorical colors, patterns, and textures. Second, she minimizes jargon. Gilliatt includes definitions wherever and whenever possible--about lighting, color, furniture, etc. Third, she features very practical and very creative tips for dealing with at-home issues, such as problem bay windows, discolored tile grout, and storage solutions. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Mary Gilliatt is an acclaimed international interior designer and writer. Host of a successful television series on decorating, she is the author of over 30 best-selling books on decoration and design. Gilliatt lives in Wiltshire, England.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Watson-Guptill (September 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823030466
• ISBN-13: 978-0823030460
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,000,002 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mary Gilliatt (born 1935) is the author of some 43 books, almost all of them on various aspects of interior decoration though her Dictionary of Architecture and Interior Design (Watson Guptil, 2004) does, of course, appertain to architecture as much as decorating and her 'Fabulous Food and Friends (Pen & Sword/Remember When, 2008) is a memoir based around lunch and dinner parties given in the 1960s and 70s.

A couple of years ago, she went into a furnishings store on Madison Avenue and saw to her amazement her first book 'English Style' (Bodley Head/Viking, 1967) displayed on a plinth. Proudly admitting that she was the author she received the riposte from the owners that they thought she had died years ago. Notwithstanding she is still working as an interior designer and consultant as well as writing and working on her new blog: 'Lifestyle with Mary Gilliatt'.

She had the first TV decorating series in the UK for ITV in 1979, called 'Home and Design'. And interestingly, over a decade later, the first TV decorating series in the US, for PBS called 'Decorating with Mary Gilliatt. She remarks that it was extremely hard, at that time, to get TV companies to agree that the public would be interested in the subject, but look at the plethora of such programs now. "It does not do', she remarks ruefully, 'to be first'. She also tried unsuccessfully in the 1990s to persuade publishers to include DVDs with decorating books, again to no avail. But again look what is happening now with publishers like Pearson etc. So in her case, at least, plus ca change is not the same thing.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Helpful Book, June 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Mary Gilliatt's Interior Design Course (Decor Best-Sellers) (Hardcover)

This book is excellent for laying out the basics for decorating/designing a house. More so than other books, descibes in detail numberous aspects of decorating that are important and not just stating the obvious.

My only diappointment of the book are with the photographs. The books descibes dozens of differnt style of decorating. 95% of the photographs are of contemporary/modern homes. Having a few more traditional photographs would have been helpful.

61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Intro. Course!, April 15, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mary Gilliatt's Interior Design Course (Decor Best-Sellers) (Hardcover)

The Interior Design Course book by Mary Gilliat's is defenitely a comprehensive interior design 101 for all of those interested in design, decoration and perhaps contemplating interior design as a future career. The book takes you from initial planning stages to the small details, gives you solutions to any design problems, and offers an extensive glossary of terms at the end of each section. This book is a must for the budding decorator!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Design Book that You Can Live Without, December 31, 2006

By 

HY "HY" (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mary Gilliatt's Interior Design Course (Decor Best-Sellers) (Hardcover)

I regret I did not read some of the other below-3-star reviews before I bought this book - all of those comments are true. First of all, the text is impossible to read. One would have thought font size is a trivial point when it comes to the quality of a book, but trust me, it is not. After just 5 minutes with this book my head was swimming. Even the captions to the photos are quite difficult to read. Apart from the awful presentation, the author has little to offer readers: (1) Contents - if you are new to interior design, this book does not give any systematic, practical and to-the-point tips to get you started. Nor is it well-organized. I was expecting to learn the basics on the historical influences on style - the book does have a chapter on this topic, but it failed miserably to point out the key differences of different periods nor is it sufficiently illustrated. Everything is in a muddle. There is indeed a few glossaries of terms in the book, but I seriously wonder if it would be relevant for most amateur decorators, for example, the ones for fabric and period furniture. (2) Images - as one has to give up on reading the text of this book, one naturally turns to the photos in hope of finding design inspirations. As some of the other reviewers so rightly pointed out, the design images selected in this book is far from impressive. They may not be to the extreme of being ugly, but certainly one would find better styled pictures in any furniture catalogue, say even from Ikea. In summary, the book does not deliver what it promises in the title - I do not feel I have learnt anything useful or practical that I can immediately apply to decorating. If you are an absolute beginner to interior design and looking for practical tips on decorating, I would highly recommend the "Essentials" series ("Living Room Essentials, Bedroom Essentials, Bathroom Essentials etc) which offer easy-to-read, instructional and user-friendly knowledge. The designs featured in the books can often be easily emulated at any budget. If you are however more interested in the asthetics and styling aspects of decorating, you might find books like "New York Apartments" more inspirational as they feature stunning design projects, often by award-winning architects or interior designers.