Customer Reviews

The House & Garden Book of Living-Rooms

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Beautiful color photos that focus both on a large expansive view of various rooms and also zoom in on smaller more detailed areas. Lots of great ideas on how to place furniture and objects and collections. If you need ideas on arranging things this is a great book. However in terms of the style I personally found it to be over the top and very unrealistic of the average home. The furnishings are mostly VERY ornate and rooms are very very large which is not often the real life situation. There are very helpful descriptions on placing items as I said earlier. It is overwhelming at times though looking at the photos because the rooms have SO MUCH furniture and so much going on.

great book to look at. Can get ideas. these living rooms are of the past or the rooms of old money. These are not modern living rooms at all.

From the pages of the British edition of the interior design magazine, THE HOUSE & GARDEN BOOK OF LIVING ROOMS, part of a series that focuses on a particular room, was published in 1991 and reprinted in 1994, hardcover. All photos are color, as one would expect from the glossy magazine. Most of the rooms are traditional although there are a few somewhat modern and post-modern; almost all the decorating schemes are from the 1980s. The majority of the rooms are located in England with a few in the United States and France. All are at least pleasant and a few are high style trend setters in their day.

The Manhattan apartment of Carroll and Milton Petrie designed by David Easton inspired many to copy his Americanized vision of the English Stately Home. A neo-Palladian villa for Josephine Abercrombie on a Kentucky thorobred farm by architect Quinlan Terry decorated by Anthony Browne also paralleled the trend towards the incorporation of comfort in stylish interiors. An English example of this 1980s fashion, still very attractive today, is shown in a Berkshire rectory decorated by Roger Banks-Pye of Colefax and Fowler. In summary, the architecture is often of a high quality and the decoration is generally interesting enough to serve as a reference for professionals and sophisticated do-it-yourselfers.

Beautiful photos of rooms. I have enjoyed looking at this several times over and will continue to do so - each time discovering something new. I collect "interior design" books and The House and Garden series seems to be consistently interesting and full of wonderful photos.