Home Therapy: Fast, Easy, Affordable Makeovers [Mass Market Paperback]

Lauri Ward (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 5, 2006

Inspiring transformations from the author of Use What You Have Decorating®-with color photos throughout!

Lauri Ward has been a "home therapist" to thousands through her books, articles, and media appearances for more than two decade. This inspiring guide takes readers into the real homes and lives of 25 of Lauri's clients to show a wide range of decorating challenges and the solutions that Lauri offered to meet their needs and expectations. Illustrated with more than 150 full-color and black-and-white before-and-after photos and floor plans, HHome Therapy offers help in transforming living spaces for everyone from twenty-somethings to retirees, using the space and things they already have-and a budget they can afford.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this straightforward, practical guide to redecorating, Ward, founder of the interiors firm Use-What-You-Have, Inc., and author of Use What You Have Decorating, uses engaging real-life stories of home makeovers to demonstrate how to work with one's existing furniture, space and accessories to create great spaces. Diagrams, before and after photos, and bulleted lists that call out common decorating mistakes help to illustrate her points clearly—and give readers a peek inside other peoples' homes, appealing to the voyeur in everyone. Each chapter addresses a different decorating conundrum—moving to a smaller space, moving to a much larger space, dealing with an overstuffed home, childproofing, preparing to sell a home—and introduces the clients, their complaints, the diagnosis, the remedy and long-term recommendations. Descriptions of clients ("a leggy blonde with a huge, bright smile"; "a tall, slim man with boyish good looks") feel forced, but suggest the reality of the solutions described. (Oct. 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The design recycling movement has many names, including staging, interior refining, and using what you have. Ward, one of its major proponents, offers her ideas for the third time. Rather than expounding on color, design, and arrangement principles, she instead concentrates on 25 clients and their befores, afters, and longer-term solutions. Each represents a life event of some sort, whether it's a coast-to-coast move, a new career, the addition of pets, or the arrival of a baby. Challenges are introduced first, usually in the voice of the client; then they're shown in diagrams and photographs, with solutions revealed in the same manner. Most decorating issues can be summarized into a list of 10, including poor furniture placement, ineffective use of accessories, and incorrect lighting, among others. The [design] doctor is in. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Perigee Trade (September 5, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039953279X
• ISBN-13: 978-0399532795
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #770,026 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Same over and over - not enough How To, December 1, 2005

By 

CnK (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Home Therapy: Fast, Easy, Affordable Makeovers (Hardcover)

Her top 10 decorating mistakes in the first chapter are good info. But then the rest of the chapters are about different clients and their makeovers. Too much time is spent describing the room (this lamp here, this picture there) both before and after....and not enough description of HOW she knew to put what where to make them better. The before and afters are dramatic, and it's amazing what can be done with what one already has. But she doesn't impart enough direction to the reader on how to know what would go good where.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not My Favorite Lauri Ward Book, November 25, 2005

By 

Diane (New York,USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Home Therapy: Fast, Easy, Affordable Makeovers (Hardcover)

I own Lauri's two other books and am a big fan of "Use What You Have" decorating. The things that I did not like about her latest book, "Home Therapy," for one, are the use of black and white photographs in her "before" pictures. It was really hard to see the details in these shots. Second was the use of too much description. (I know what you're thinking-how could there be too much description?)Lauri goes into lots of details about the clients' rooms and I found myself flipping the pages back and forth to try to see everything she was pointing out. Very confusing. If I were going to recommend one of Lauri's books it would definitely be her first one.("Use What You Have Decorating.")I love it and have bought it for friends.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as as her first book, July 8, 2006

By 

ReadNReVu - See all my reviews

This review is from: Home Therapy: Fast, Easy, Affordable Makeovers (Hardcover)

I did not like the layout of this book at all--particularly annoying was the fact that you had to turn pages between the "before" and "after" room drawing layouts-they should have been either put on facing pages or on the same page.

Also, her first book worked well because it seemed to focus more on average people with decorating issues, this book was definitely skewed towards people with scads of money like the people with the view home in Laguna Beach, who practically had walls made of windows--hardly what the average person is looking to showcase!

I would borrow this one from the library, but buy her first book.