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48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Divine Harmony, January 3, 2005
This review is from: Rooms: Creating Luxurious, Livable Spaces (Hardcover)
With "Rooms", Ms. Himes Gomez has become my favorite American interior designer.
To my great surprise and chagrin, I found that most reviewers held quite a harsh opinion about Ms. Himes Gomez's abilities and her book. Some went so far as to insinuate that the positive reviews were written by the the author herself. Whether or not this is true, I cannot say, but while one must acknowledge that most of the positive reviews sounded somewhat similar, it ought also be acknowledged that those interested in interior design, including magazine writers, tend to overuse a certain jargon -- and hence sound exchangeably similar. Let me cast any doubts one might have, and say from the outset, that I do not know the author, nor was I involved with the production of this book, nor do I stand to gain from its sale.
Offended by the confused, cluttered, and gaudy design schemes that comprise much of interior design today, I do not dare to imagine what the negative reviewers understanding of "luxurious", "comfortable", and "casual" may be.
Ms. Himes Gomez achieves a perfect, refreshing harmony between sparseness and ornamentation, and has the uncanny talent to know when to stop.
Her rooms are composed like paintings in an equilibrium that reminds me of Renaissance art, in which the symmetry of a balanced composition exemplifies the existence of divine intention.
Luxury, here, does not mean to drown oneself in an overstuffed sofa, but to leave the worries and stresses of everyday life behind as one enters a home and is greeted by simple and classical beauty. Every object in such a home is placed there for a reason. More importantly, the absence of an object means that it was left out for good reason. As a woman does not wear her entire jewelry collection at once, because it does not fit, it is also not sensical to fill a room with objects that do not belong there, and whose only merit is that they are pretty or valuable.
Environments affect thoughts, emotions and behavior: a temple should direct a visitor's feelings to the numinous, a university library promotes a scholar's concentration; equally, a room designed by Ms. Himes Gomez facilitates the inhabitant's ability to focus on the essential things in life. Who could ask more of a personal space?
I was surprised at how varied the "range" of Ms. Himes Gomez visual technique is: While her favorites seem to be the neutral colored designs, I learned that, when necessary, she uses bright, and engaging colors very adroitly (e.g. for a house located in the rainy Irish countryside).
Her repertoire is varied, spanning from "country" to "urban", and she realizes her superb ideas, while mainting a consistent design philosophy. I frankly do not understand how somebody can execute so many different styles and at the same time be so consistent.
I most heartily recommend this book to anybody who wants to learn from the best that interior design has to offer.
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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book has changed my life!!, April 7, 2006
This review is from: Rooms: Creating Luxurious, Livable Spaces (Hardcover)
I am a stay-at-home father of one-year-old twin boys with a military background. I've always wanted my home to have that tasteful look that comes from understated wealth and assumed it required money -lots of it, and that arcane knowledge that separates good designers from mere homeowners.
Well, I don't need money, I needed this book!
I have learned much from three years worth of House and Garden magazine. All the amazing houses and rooms are there to be studied and scrutinized. Yet I always wondered how the designer came upon the ideas to do put those drapes with that color wall and that certain chair and so on. Unless I wanted to make an exact replica of some millionaire's living room, I saw no way of creating that energy in my own house.
This book is not like other picture books of great layouts. It didnt matter that I dont have triple-hung windows or a fireplace or 12-ft high ceilings. This book allowed me to see what I do have, and to work it masterfully. It also allowed me to see problem areas, and to mitigate their effects.
I like the way the author proceeds to tell the story of her own process of putting a room together. Had she done what all the other picture books do- tell the reader what to do in this certain room- there would be no true learning, only rote memorization or copying. By telling her own story and her thought processes, the author literally trained me on how to really take stock of my living room and the spaces taken up by furniture and bookcases and windows.
halfway through the book, I had what felt like 50 new ideas about my own place. Sitting at the dining room table, I suddenly saw that the dining room needed a table with a pedestal to free up some of the space. My living room set is a long couch and an oversized chair with ottoman, and the perpendicular layout I had was totally wrong and un-balancing for the room. So using the authors ideas on circles and making conversational spaces, i turned the chair diagonally to face the couch, which clicked with the offcenter side window and the bookcase to create a new energy that just feels right. My wife came home and was very impressed.
Interestingly, Mrs. Gomez's ideas on flow through a room and conversational groupings seem so intuitive to how people live. I could put my two boys in those rooms from the book and they wouldnt get into trouble, because they crawl around on instinct in ways that reinforce the author's ideas on flow. Say you have two distinct furniture groupings in a room (most of us dont have 50 ft long rooms, as the author attests), a baby or babies would rather operate between the two, in open areas, rather than messing around in the particular spaces among furniture.
Anyways, this book changed my life. It will let you know the secrets of unifying hardware, shape and line, the geographical intersections that windows and doorways make for a room and how to furnish to that, placing furniture on rugs and rugs in the room, how to choose the correct rug (even persians!), and how to save a wall by stamping it (my word) with art or pictures. I was really shocked by the negative reviews, but it seems that some people expect more direction or they equate livable with beanbags strewn around the room or something. I dont know.
You really should get this book.
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20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Solid, entertaining read from Mrs. Himes Gomez, September 23, 2004
This review is from: Rooms: Creating Luxurious, Livable Spaces (Hardcover)
Hines is clearly a master of furniture placement and--it is rumored--an excellent antiques shopper. Her rooms are refined, warm, uptown and expensive; they are not young, they are not hip. She is traditional, but nothing here is ever stolid or dull.
Though soft monochromatic rooms often photograph as a wash, in person they are a different animal altogether, often rich and highly textural. The same problem plagues pictures in the books of Jeffrey Bihuber and Vicente Wolf: you can never capture what those rooms feel like in person (and I've been in them).
Hines is a good place to start if dallying in design. Her text is clear and makes for a nice read. She plays by the rules. Nothing here is earth-shattering, but it is all close to perfection. (not all clients want earth-shattering, and you probably don't either). If you think one of these types of rooms is easy to pull together, then--believe me--you probably have never tried it.
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