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Undecorate: The No-Rules Approach to Interior Design [Hardcover]

Christiane Lemieux , Rumaan Alam
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)

List Price: $40.00
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Book Description

March 8, 2011
Jettison the old rulebooks about home décor and “undecorate” your space. As the founder and creative director of DwellStudio—which is famous for its brightly colored, graphic textile designs for home furnishings—designer Christiane Lemieux challenges tradition in a quintessentially American way, championing a fresh, unconventional approach to creating a beautiful and comfortable home. Lemieux emboldens readers to push aside stuffy, professionally-designed décor, showing them instead how to infuse their own personality into their home.
 
Undecorate profiles twenty homes from all over the country, revealing their owners’ love of imperfection and penchant for surprise and unusual juxtapositions while inspiring readers to follow their own whimsy and practicalities in their personal spaces. An anglophile creates an English manor in Hollywood, mixing British flea-market finds with midcentury furniture. A car fanatic turns a vintage Airstream trailer into a master bedroom and situates it in the middle of a vast industrial loft in downtown Chicago. A couple transforms a log house in Nashville, Tennessee, by blending their modern and eclectic styles with the home’s rustic charm. Though the designs differ widely, the spaces all express an open-minded attitude. Some homes embrace their contexts, while others transcend them. All are shaped by instinct and imagination and share innovative ideas that readers can use to organically and elegantly create their home to match their lifestyle and tastes.
 
Lemieux gets to the essence of the homeowners’ distinctive styles, pinpointing the transformative ideas, thoughtful details, and useful solutions that make each home memorable. With more than 200 full-color photographs, Undecorate will both inspire and guide homeowners to a new outlook on home design. 
 

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

CHRISTIANE LEMIEUX is the founder and creative director of DwellStudio, a fast-growing home décor and children’s furnishings company. Known for her colorful, modern patterns, Lemieux launched a full-scale fabric line in 2010. She is also a featured design partner with Target and a frequent contributor to leading design blogs, such as Apartment Therapy and Design*Sponge. She lives in New York City with her husband, children, and her Labrador, the design studio’s mascot.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Potter Style (March 8, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 030746315X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0307463159
  • Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.9 x 11 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 42 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Save Your Hard-Earned Money, DO NOT Buy This Book October 8, 2011
By Suz
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I purchased this book because it was excerpted in September's Better Homes and Gardens. The picture that they used made me eager to see more and get new ideas and tips on casual chic decor. I should've reconsidered after seeing the sorrowful cover image but I clicked Buy anyway. With the exception of two homes, most of the rooms featured are dingy and completely haphazard. Many of them look like they could use a thorough de-clutter, new furniture, a good cleaning and a fresh coat of paint. I had an odd feeling while paging through the book and it wasn't until I came to a page that featured a man sitting in a stark room on a shapeless couch with his elderly parents and books randomly strewn around them that I realized it was discomfort. I don't know where the authors found their subjects but they should have helped them rather than photograph them for a misleadingly titled book. This book is NOT inspirational and does NOT provide any guidance or fresh ideas. It is simply a collection of photographs of two nice homes with a lot of dreary looking spaces added. With all the great design blogs available for free, save your money, buy another book or preview before buying. Caveat emptor.
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35 of 41 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Undecorate, The Way We Live Now March 20, 2011
Format:Hardcover
Undecorate. Provocative title. Does it mean to go minimal and spartan and dispose of all the the trappings of interior design and decorating?

On the contrary, it means infusing your home with personality, color dense and/or neutral, and mixing it up with high and low things of every age, vintage, antique, and contemporary.

The book is filled with real people who just happen to have a super real grasp for decorating. Even though the book plays down the professional decorator or designer, all of the homes have owners who are in a creative profession, sometimes as design professionals, decorators, stylists, artists of every type, and writers. But rather than eschew typical rules and regulations of creating home decor, these folks embrace the unique and beautiful.

The title includes: "The No Rules Approach To Interior Design", that kind of implies that doing what each home owner did was just throw it together without thought to what good design means. This is so not true! No rules does not mean no talent, or no educated eye editing and arranging these spaces. Each home is meticulous in it's details, even though the process unfolded in a natural, no rules, organic manner. It would be great to have anyone of these creative home owners come over and help do up your home.

Common threads unite all of these spaces. You will see collections, color, antlers, art work, books, typography as art, pattern, hide rugs, mid century modern, modern and vintage textiles, French antiques, and naturally and artfully edited spaces that look lived in and inviting. And there's a sense of fun and whimsy and wit in these rooms too.

All of this makes the book user friendly. The reader feels that this kind of undecorating is within their reach.

Add to that Christiane Lemieaux's (with Rumaan Alam) heartfelt, honest, and expert writing and you have a book to look at and to read. The photographs by Melanie Acevedo capture a true clear light that makes each page luscious.

With chapter titles like: "The Imperfectionists", "The Career Opportunists", "Decorators Without Borders", (and more), it makes you wonder how your own decor might be defined and described.

If you loved the defunct and much loved Domino, and are a fan of Lonny, love to read decor and design blogs, you will love this book. Undecorate elevates and takes their editorial viewpoint a few steps further.

If you'd like a breath of fresh air, and a finger on the pulse of how people decorate now, and will continue to do so for many years to come, get this book. Gone are the days of theme decorating like "Tuscan", "French Country", and even "Eclectic". Here is the new mix based on real life and the enjoyment that comes from living it in your home, and sharing it with all who live there and enter your door.

The book is not ageist either. Christiane includes photos of the home owners, and both younger and older alike have that certain style sizzle and pizazz.

Christiane and company traveled the country seeking out these homes, many of them found via decor and design blogs, truly the paradigm for anyone interested in decorating and design. She got to know the people whose homes she writes about, and the book is so genuine, more so than most decor books churned out.

In short, now that I have gone on so long: Buy this book.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars If you mourned DOMINO mag shutting down... October 1, 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Then pick up this book. If Domino was your style, then you'll be inspired by this collection of ideas. Eclectic, not matchy-matchy, not boring. Fun, inspiring-- you'll go mix up and re-arrange what you already own, and enjoy it more.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars good book
This is a good book! I buy many styles of decorating books. This is a good one to have in the collection.
Published 23 days ago by lynne grebil
3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful photos and copy
Like this design book but don't love it. Some great inspiration but some not so good. Buy it if you can get a sale price.
Published 3 months ago by Cindy C. Taylor
1.0 out of 5 stars You could always get it at the Library
Otherwise, I'd skip it. Not very inspiring. I really like Dwell Studio so I was excited for this book but it was pretty disappointing.
Published 4 months ago by Lisa Stevens
2.0 out of 5 stars Love the concept, not the the reality
I found little inspiration in this book. Living with what you love sounds good. But nothing goes together in these rooms and it all looks like 1st apartment after college. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Vail Shipley
4.0 out of 5 stars The cover photo is the ugliest thing in the whole book; look past it!
Just took this out of the local library. The cover photo put me off, because face it: it's ugly. And, I certainly didn't want a book which taught me to create ugly rooms in my own... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Bookratt
5.0 out of 5 stars Real Life, Real Design
I meant to write this review several weeks ago when I finished reading this book but I've often gone back to it during this time. Read more
Published 13 months ago by K. Fitzgerald
1.0 out of 5 stars Not very inspiring
What a disappointment........Yes, the photos are beautiful but the rooms featured are generally not inspiring. A lot of them look like sloppy housekeeping. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Barb Montana
4.0 out of 5 stars Undecorate and feel the stress go away
This book confirms what I have been doing all my adult life - undecorating. Never have gone to a store and "decorated" my home. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Snow
5.0 out of 5 stars Keep It Simple
Gread guide to uncluttering your living space w/o having it look too austere or over the top minimalist. This book was a gift to my wife, an interior designer. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Kevin Curtis
4.0 out of 5 stars fun and different decorating
The book is good with lots of excellent ideas, unfortunately the book came to me damaged. Interior shots of large country homes all the way to small city studios and even loft... Read more
Published 17 months ago by S. Gibbs
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