Customer Reviews

House Beautiful Storage

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This is a beautiful book. That's where it's usefulness ends. It will look lovely sitting on your coffee table. That's where it will stay too because it's useless if you have any kind of monetary restrictions. If you are looking to build your dream house from scratch, go for it. If you want practical ways to use the space that you already have, skip this book. Use the $25 to buy a shelf!!

My purpose in buying this book was to inspire me, not to tell me exactly where to hang a shelf. If you want step by step instructions, obviously, this is not the book for you. However, if you enjoy interior decoration as an art form or an outlet for creativity, or, yes, to look at pretty pictures, you will enjoy this book.

Alhtough some of the photos may not have been previously published, this book is a pictorial overview of various stylish storage solutions from projects that have been seen in "House Beautiful" magazine. Any repeats are worthwhile in this helpful book, however, that ranges from the simple but classic library in the last home of legendary decorator Nancy Lancaster to the stark utilitarian dressing room/closet in the New York loft of designer Bruce Bierman. Work by interior designers Bunny Williams, Christian Badin, David Anthony Easton, Tom Fleming, Mariette Himes Gomez and Mario Buatta are shown along with architects Hugh Newell Jacobsen, Peter Pennoyer, and John Tackett, among many others. Not a "How To" book, but rather an inspiration for storage throughout the house.

So many of these books appear to have been contrived by folks who practice one form or another of art and the end consequence is that practicality and usefulness typically suffers. That's not at all the case in this instance.

This book comes to us as an extension of "House Beautiful" magazine and features storage ideas for every room in one's home, no matter how large or small it is. Here are some of the most outstanding thoughts I encountered:

-- hidden closets behind bookcases (elaborate but clever)
-- dual-purpose furniture which serves to promote storage
-- there is huge emphasis on book storage and home libraries (a difficulty which we all seem to face)
-- free-standing book cases (glass-fronts)
-- an open-ceiling, two-story library (beautiful!)
-- pantries for tableware
-- attractive home office storage (so that it doesn't look like an office)
-- entertainment centers, dealing with DVDs, CDs, etc.
-- clever use of wall tapestries
-- wine storage
-- food storage (dry goods, etc.)
-- an airborne "batterie de cuisine" (pots and pans suspended by ironwork over a kitchen island)
-- utilitarian clothing storage (very accessible)

The book goes further to detail BOTH concepts of storage: hidden and displayed. Also various styles and "periods" are taken into consideration.

The profuse color photography in this book is first-class. A big plus stems from the fact that these numerous pictures were taken by many, many different photographers in varied sorts of homes -- in other words, the best of the best.

I perceived one shortcoming of the book. (It's almost always what's NOT in a book that brings it up short of perfect.) In all the photos of these homes I saw no pets. People who care for as many cats and dogs as I do know that this actuality can change the equation on certain types of storage and this topic was not addressed. But we can't have everything.

In summary, this is a terrific idea book on both home design and in regard to possible and beneficial changes to an existing home which will make storage (and life) much easier.

Highly recommended.