Customer Reviews

Home Sweet Home: A Journey Through Mary's Dream Home

5 star:		(13)
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3 star:		(1)
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As a HUGE Mary Engelbreit fan that owns many of her books, I can honestly say that this is one of Mary's best books EVER! It is filled with numerous beautiful photos of her very own home and I think it was wonderful of her to share it with all of her devoted followers. It's quite obvious from the very first page that this house is "very Mary". Her signature touches are everywhere throughout her home and I loved looking at how she pulled everything together to put her own personal stamp on even the smallest details (like the cute cherries cutouts on her shutters!) This book is an absolute must for any true blue Mary Engelbreit fan!

In her new book, Home Sweet Home, Mary Engelbreit says she doesn't have a gift for gardening. However, the marvelous decorating style she uses in her home spills over into her professionally designed and maintained gardens. In Mary's garden, statues peek from unexpected places. A fairy perches on a mosaic chair, while a gnome finds a resting spot in a child's wicker seat. I was inspired by the charming gates that bear Mary's decorating stamp, the birdhouses that are just rustic enough to hang in the yard, but still absolutely adorable, and the many vignettes Mary created in her yard. She credits her gardener with the landscaping, but Mary brings the comfort of her home out into the yard with her unique decorating style.

A gazebo is aglow with lanterns and decorated with vintage wicker, a patio is filled with cozy furniture, and rocking horses sit on the pool house steps. Even the indoor portions of the book are filled with nature and floral motifs.

Although this book is not strictly a gardening book, I feel that the whimsy and charm of the accessories in the landscape will be an inspiration for any gardener who likes Mary's style. From adorable bird houses and statuary to comfortable outdoor furniture, this book has many ideas for a gardener who would like to bring Mary's style into the yard.

Do you ever drive by a great house and wish you could look inside? Well...that's what this book is like!

You get to see all the rooms in Mary's house in detail. It is wonderful to be able to really study the stunning pictures for the smallest ideas. Mary tells the story of how she bought the house and how she loved it for years before it became hers.

You are sure to enjoy this book. It is a visual delight!:)

As a collector of decorating books with beautifull photos, I loved this book! If you love full-page, bright photographs of rooms, this will not disappoint. Highly recommend!

Absolutely STUNNING book. I have poured over this one MANY times. Something for everyone...whether you like Shabby Chic, classic ME cherries, beautiful English Garden, gorgeous book. So Cottagey and sweet. Very sentimental and collected....sort of a managed, organized, slightly tangled chaos of great stuff!

I was not dissapointed. I'm more of the shabby chic, cottage garden type and I loved it. There was also all the classic Mary stuff, so truly I think it would please most.

I think this book is fabulous. I would love even more pictures and details. I would love a floor plan to be able to get a better sense of scale. It left me wanting more and that is always good.

Karen Uda

This book is larger than a person might think.

Even though the book is about just one home (ie: ONE of Mary's favorite homes), each page is filled with inspirational ideas. Page after page, the viewer of Mary's favorite dream home will be dazzled by the way in which Mary puts colors and collections (& garden ideas) together. Wow!

Interestingly enough, since this book was written, Mary has already re-decorated this home just recently! So if you want to see how Mary has transformed this dream home even further, you can see the new transformations in the latest issue of Mary's HOME COMPANION MAGAZINE(Spring 2007 issue). It's fun to refer back to this book, and then to look inside the Spring 2007 magazine photos of Mary's creative ideas expressed once more in her "favorite dream home".

While this stunning idea packed volume is subtitled A Journey Through Mary's Dream Home, it will probably be the dream house of many who leaf through these color filled pages.

HOME SWEET HOME begins just as you'd enter a home - at the front door, and a welcoming one it is at the top of a tree lined drive and alive with brightly blossoming plants. Once you see cherry-shaped cutouts on wooden window shutters you know it is, indeed, Mary's house.

After seeing the beautifully landscaped yard, playhouse, and welcoming gazebo we're invited into the living room awash in sunshine and soothing with colors of pale greens and cream. "Open to the rafters, sunlight filters in through skylights directly above and big windows on three sides of the room."

The dining room is, if you will, elegant, and you've never seen a kitchen like Mary's! It is eye-popping red full of checks, cherries, hearts, and cottage roses. The hearth in the kitchen fireplace boasts read and white checkerboard tiles and crimson, of course, canisters hold staples.

The house is more than amazing with every small space a tableau, perhaps filled by "Mary's inexhaustible drive to make every nook and cranny of the house feel like home."

HOME SWEET HOME is a pleasure and resource you'll return to again and again because you cannot possibly absorb all there is to see and learn with one or two readings.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

As a Mary Engelbreit fan, I did enjoy seeing her home. But I think this is more of a coffee table book or something a Mary Engelbreit collector will enjoy than a decorating idea book. If you're interested in cottage decorating, I think you will get a wider variety of ideas from Better Homes & Gardens and Sunset's cottage decorating books.

this is a wonderful book - full of photos of rooms and details. really puts you into Mary's special world. I love decor books, and this is a beautiful book and highly recommended (it's the first of Mary's books I have bought).