Customer Reviews

Use What You Have Decorating : Transform Your Home in One Hour With Ten Simple Design Principles -- Using the Space You Have, the Things You Like, the Budget You Choose

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

A better title for this book would have been "How to Rearrange Your Single Purpose Living Room If You Have a Fireplace And Nice Furniture to Create a Comfortable Conversation Area". She talks exclusively about living rooms and 90% of the problems she shows are solved by moving the furniture closer together so people can hold a conversation comfortably. And not just any living room but a certain kind of formal living room. Almost every room she shows has a fireplace and has a very regular geometric shape. How do I create a focal point if my living room is an octagon with windows on almost every wall and no windowless wall is big enough to put a couch under? Only one room she shows has a television in it. How do I create a comfortable conversation area that also lets me (and my guests) watch television? How can the fireplace be the focal point of the room if I also have a television in it? What if I live in a 800 square foot apartment and don't have the space for the strict separation of duties that she seems to advocate? What if I don't have a family room to put the television in? What if I don't like my furniture or want to add to my collection? While I find her low-cost use-what-you-already-have approach a nice alternative to the spend-$20,000-and-change-everything approach, sometimes just rearranging your furniture and art isn't going to cut it.

Instead what we get are 10 basic design guidelines. And I do mean basic. I honestly have to wonder about all of these people who have fireplaces and don't use them as the focal point of the room. While it seems like what she says is just common sense, I suppose there is some good in having it written down. It just seems like it isn't really enough information to fill an entire book and then charge $16 for it.

I didn't find the lack of color as annoying as some other reviewers but that's because Ward's design consists primarily of physical arrangement; the use of color wouldn't have helped make things much clearer but definitely would have added to the cost of the book. Towards the end of the book she gives some lip service to the use of color and in that part of the book color photographs would have been useful.

It is also somewhat surprising that a book published in 1998 (my edition was published in October 1999) doesn't have a single URL to any of the sources she provides at the end of the book.

The most useful feature of this book is the list of major decorating mistakes: the author illustrates them clearly, so you can see why they are mistakes, and offers simple, inexpensive solutions. The before-and-after black and white photos of unmistakably real homes (first two pages: what's wrong here? overleaf: how did we fix it?) are very convincing. You'll get a lot of basic knowledge out of this book: how to create a good conversation space, how to create "flow" in a room, how to avoid visual clutter, what to do with collections. Her method of presentation teaches you what questions you need to ask yourself in order to show your own furniture and space to its best advantage. Which is what decorating is all about, right?

I have a few quibbles: why does Ward assume that only men are interested in good hi-fi equipment while women would be happy with anything that doesn't interfere with their decorating scheme?? I beg to differ... Her style is generally rather "feminine" - she'll encourage you to use lots of pillows and throws - which isn't for everyone.

The only major gap in this book is how to use colour to improve the look of your space. She's of the "white and/or beige is best for all rooms" school. Boring, boring, boring. Myself, I'm fixing to paint my dining room red.

I found this book to be extremly helpful because it guides you through creating a visually pleasing home that is also functional by rearranging items that you already have. So many people have beautiful things in their home and expensive furniture, but do not arrange these items so their rooms "work". This book gives you practical advice that you can really implement in an hour or two. It fullfills a need that is overlooked in most interior decorating books.

This book does not focus on interior decorating as a whole or the components that are traditionally addressed in interior decorating books(picking a style, a color theme, window treatments, picking furniture and accessories). This book concentrates on the arranging portion of decorating. The book does not contain color photos (However, I did not find that to be an issue and actually found black and white to be helpful in this case because it didn't distract me from the topics). If you are looking for a book to guide you through the overall decorating process, you will be disappointment with this book. Check out Better Homes and Gardens New Decorating Book for a complete book on interior decorating. However, if you are looking for a book to help you arrange your stuff, then you will be absolutely thrilled with this book and the results you produce.

The genius of this book is that it gives you a firm foundation for any decorating you want to do, and you can do it WITHOUT SPENDING ANY MONEY! This book is the first and last word on furniture arrangement for non-professionals, and it doesn't tell you to buy new furniture before you start. This is not a comprehensive book on the whole decorating/design process, but it does teach by realistic example, it's thorough, and it's easy to understand. No, there are not a lot of color pictures, but color is not the point of this book. The photographs feature the sort of furniture and rooms that most of us are dealing with, rather than fantasy rooms that few of us can afford. I found it very helpful to see the bare bones without having every detail planned out for me. I do wish the author had ventured beyond the living room--perhaps most people request a re-design of their public rooms. However, what I learned certainly helped me to plan other spaces in my new house. If she ever does a book on other rooms of the home, I'd stand in line to buy it. I agree that some of her ideas are arbitrary, and I don't buy all of them. I have to admit, however, that removing the photographs and odd objects from our bookshelves considerably improved their appearance. This book is a wonderful companion to other decorating books you may all ready have or plan to buy. And it may save you a lot of money!

I read this book in one evening and couldn't wait to make changes the next day. We just moved into a smaller home and I was having quite a problem arranging the furniture in my dining room. In one afternoon I was able to use Lauri Ward's concepts and arrange it - and the results are wonderful!

There were so many decorating suggestions that have helped me in other areas - size of art over the sofa, height of lamps in living and bedrooms, the use of pairs, what to do when you have a tall item, and collections.

I felt the use of black and white photos helped to keep the book timeless, as color trends change so often. I was disappointed towards the end of the book as not enough was said about accessorizing, such as placement, shapes, sizes, and texture. Also, it bothered me that most completed rooms were carbon copies of each other - in other words, no individuality. The book can be restrictive too - there are a lot of "musts".

I still feel that for the new decorator this book is a must-have. It really gets to the point. You will look at your rooms with new eyes and realize just what you need to do to make them right.

The good: the author's room plans actually take into account furniture placement around windows and glass doors as well as entry points. Her examples show REAL homes with odd, mismatched furniture. Clear before and after pictures and floor plans, even if they are in black and white. She has some good rules of thumb to at least think of, which you may or may not agree with, and tends toward the neutral (white/beige) as far as paint--you can always add color with your choice of furnishings and art. She tells you which one should win out between beautiful view and fireplace when you have both in a room.

The bad: Most of it is about living rooms, and she apparently assumes that you are doing a good deal of formal entertaining there. There are virtually no ideas for people who use their living rooms for anything else, e.g. home office, exercise room, playroom, etc. Not everyone entertains in their house--some have backyard BBQs, and others entertain at restaurants or the local park.

Where I disagreed with her: If you have a library of books that you actually use, you would never organize them by size, you would organize them by subject/author, except of course for your truly oversized books. Pillows on sofas--hmmm. I think you can use them on futons or sofas with hard armrests, but on your typical overstuffed sofa, they're overkill. Would rather see a nice handmade afghan.

To the critics who were upset that she "ignored" the TV: It is an etiquette thing, actually. The TV is not supposed to be more important than your guests, and she is by no means the only decorator who says to hide the TV in an armoire or better yet, put it in another room. These days a lot of the newer homes have dedicated "home theater" type rooms, anyway--with a less-expensive alternative being a spare bedroom.

Besides, if you're having a Superbowl party or some such TV-related event, it would be smarter to have a TV in the kitchen/family room area where hopefully there is no carpet, and nothing furniture-wise that could be ruined by food.

Bottom line: This book has a lot of useful ideas for furniture arranging, geared primarily to the living room and family room, but you can also use them as a jump-off point for rearranging other rooms. Some good ideas for some of the other rooms, like dining rooms you don't use because your kitchen is plenty big enough to eat in. I thought this book was much, much better than Decorating for Good by Carol Talbott.

I have dozens of decorating books. Most of them feature a particular style or document the decorating characteristics of a foreign country. These books are beautiful and fun to read. Unfortunately they have not been very helpful in decorating my own Manhattan shoebox apartment.

This book, however, is a noteable exception. The pictures are all black and white, and some of them are slightly fuzzy. But the text is very clear. I have been trying for at least a decade to get my furniture arranged correctly. It is now perfect, thanks to the very simple instructions in this book. And my art is hung correctly, my lighting is both functional and attractive, and I am comfortable in my own home. When people come to visit for the first time, they frequently say, "Wow! Who decorated this place?" All the credit goes to Lauri Ward, who has addressed a real need.

If you want to look at pretty pictures, this is not the book for you. But if you want to carefully analyse your rooms and figure out how to make them look wonderful using mainly items you already own, this is the book for you.

What I like about this book is that I can apply it right away and make a big difference in my day-to-day life without repainting, buying new stuff (that I wouldn't know what to do with, anyway) or starting from scratch. I just redid my living room and can't believe it's the same place. Her ideas are simple but may take a little playing with to get it right--I tried 2 or 3 versions until it all popped into place. Now it's my turn to fine tune things with my artwork and collections, but already things are both more cozy and spacious, adult yet personalized -- and give me a groundwork from which to work. Once things are clarified, it's easy to know exactly what I need (if anything) to make the room work best. I love books on interior design, but this is the first one I have been able to apply instead of just dream about.

While this book did offer some practical advice, I was somewhat disappointed. The majority of the book focuses on the living room, and Ms. Ward does a good job of discussing typical mistakes people make with furniture placement and how to solve them. She does a great job of showing how to create comfortable conversation areas and attractive room arrangements. However, very little attention is paid to other rooms in the house. In addition, her "rules" are rather restrictive and in some cases just don't make sense (eg., only put books on bookshelves - never mix in photos or knick knacks! Or, no artwork in the bedroom!) Some of the redos seemed a little obvious(she madeover one dining room by actually putting the chairs around the table). The book could have benefited from some better photographs, possibly color (they are all b&w). Note: if you are looking for painting techniques or window treatments, this is not the book for you.

Finally, a book for those of us who are "decorating challenged". What it does really well is show how to arrange furniture and hang artwork so that your home is comfortable. Lots of good before and after diagrams and photos make it easy to understand the author's points. I appreciated the examples from real life and not idealized magazine houses.

I've arranged my living room furniture many different ways and never knew why it didn't work. In one day, I rearranged the stuff we already had and everyone in the family felt immediately more comfortable (even my husband who dislikes change). I even found room for the piano which had been stuck in my daughter's bedroom.

This book does not address colors, patterns, walls, floors or window treatments or what furniture to buy if you are replacing a lot of pieces. Will have to find another source for those. Meanwhile, make the most of what you already have!