Vastu Home [Hardcover]

Julie Pegrum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2002

Harmonize your home using the practical and beautiful ancient Indian interior design tradition of Vastu Vidya. Providing a complete repertoire of interior design, The Vastu Home updates this ancient art of placement to accommodate the realities of our modern Western lifestyles. By following inspirational advice on layout and decoration, you can transform each room in your home and garden into a peaceful retreat or an energizing space. Assuming no prior knowledge of Vastu Vidya or interior design, The Vastu Home shows how the simple rearrangement of your furniture, as well as use of light and colour, can rebalance the energy of your home. If you would like to live in harmony with others, maximise your prosperity and harness positive energy, The Vastu Home is for you.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Even though it may well predate feng shui, Vastu, the ancient Indian tradition that "seeks to align living spaces with their inhabitants and the cosmos," has yet to rise to mass public consciousness, but it's certainly growing. Pegrum, an interior designer and yoga instructor who has lived in India, explains the complex history, philosophy, and religion behind Vastu in a clearly written overview illustrated with color photographs and crisply drawn floor plans. Chapters divided into each area of the house outline the optimal placement of rooms and furnishings to enhance the flow of prana, or "cosmic energy," and notes ways to achieve balance in the least ideal conditions. Pegrum concludes with chapters about achieving pranic flow in unconventional spaces, such as lofts, and in gardens. The Vastu approach incorporates the increasingly trendy Indian health tradition of ayurveda, which will attract some readers. And, although Vastu isn't yet mainstream (unlike feng shui, there isn't a Vastu for Dummies), there will probably be demand for this sensitive, informative guide. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Duncan Baird Publishers (October 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1903296838
• ISBN-13: 978-1903296837
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 9.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #632,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Pretty pictures but not a practical guide., June 2, 2006

By 

Bridgitte (Sacramento, US, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Vastu Home: Harmonize Your Living Space with the Indian Feng Shui (Paperback)

I purchased this book hoping to find a practical guide on Vastu. It turns out to be a picture book full of contempo-modern indian styled spaces with little to no practical instruction.
Vastu is a design system based on the Square (which represents the spirit/demon Vasta Purusha covering earth) and this book only explains how to decorate square rooms in a square space. I could find no advice on how to handle non-square rooms or solutions to problems that go along with renting a home that can not be significantly altered. I have seen plenty of Fung Shui books that suffer from the same problems. I understand that this design philosphy is ancient and most historical practitioners would have built their homes using these ideals, but this book is marketed to the modern public, most of whom are already living in their home and unable to make use of the chapters on "Choosing the Vastu Home: The Site" and "Choosing the Vastu Home: The Structure". These chapters might be informative, but they are only helpful to a small portion of the people who will read this book. There are no chapters for Apartment dwellers or on problem solving existing situations both of which would have a wider audience.
All in all, I wish I had not spent the money on this book. The pictures are nice, but hardly inspirational and the text is a little boring and dry. Also the page layout is very boring and each page looks exactly the same. I would suggest that you keep looking for another source of Vastu information. And when you find it, please let me know because I think the topic is fascinating!

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not just Vastu tradition, but a wonderful sense of style, January 11, 2005

By 

Valaberg (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Vastu Home: Harmonize Your Living Space with the Indian Feng Shui (Paperback)

This interesting book provides a useful introduction to the Vastu tradition, which many have compared to feng shui. However, the photographs in this book demonstrate a great sense of style, color, and design. Designers and even architects will find something of use here.