In Your Space: Personalizing Your Home and Office [Hardcover]

Jenette Kahn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2002

An inspiring book on design and a lively autobiography, this text portrays Jenette Kahn's odyssey renovating and decorating her apartment in a landmark Manhattan building, her townhouse in Harlem, her office at DC Comics and MAD Magazine, and her country and guest houses in Connecticut. She describes her creative process throughout her search for innovative, personal solutions to such basic decorating problems as small spaces, low ceilings, and run-down fireplaces. As Jason Schmidt's photographs reveal, she has created a fireplace with a crossword puzzle surround; a dining room with a faux frescoed ceiling of images by Renaissance artists; a painted musical score enlivening a folding closet door; and much more. Kahn also explores new sources for furniture, from Art Deco and mid-century modern to contemporary designs, all the while assembling a colourful, original collection of furnishings and art that reflect her personality. We accompany her on visits to dealers, artists' studios, and flea markets and overhear conversations with contractors and designers. In an exuberant writing style laced with humour and insight, the author shares her mistakes as well as her successes. Whether or not your taste in decor is as modern or free-form as Kahn's, the methods she employs to achieve the results she wants are important for everyone to know. This book provides an abundance of ideas and encouragement for anyone longing to create rooms of their own.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jenette Kahn, who lives in New York and Connecticut, is the President and Editor-in-Chief of DC Comics and MAD Magazine. Jason Schmidt also lives in New York and regularly contributes to The New Yorker, House & Garden, Nest, The New York Times Magazine, and other leading publications.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Abbeville Press; 1St Edition edition (May 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789207559
• ISBN-13: 978-0789207555
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 9.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,823,586 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learning To See...And To Trust The Seeing, June 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: In Your Space: Personalizing Your Home and Office (Hardcover)

What Jenette Kahn has written here is much more that a retelling of a life (although it is that); rather, it is a marvelous evocation of the refining of a very particular, resourceful, and uniquely demanding taste. What Kahn shows us is her artistic (and artful) obsessions--with space, with self-expression, and with visual delight.

Reading In Your Space felt partly like looking at oneself in the mirror in great lighting (the "recognition factor" of one's own design-maven ambitions) and partly like having someone throw open the doors of (to?) an entirely new world that you always suspected lay just beyond the threshold of what you were able to imagine for yourself, by yourself. And the best part? She not only gently suggests how you might think about designing the spaces you inhabit, but tells you where to go to find what you want, how to make the connections you need, how deal with recalcitrant sources...and then how to rethink it all if need be ("You can always repaint!") and let the spirit of the place--and the prized possessions it it--tell you how and what it wants to be.

In Your Space chronicles a personal journey of education--learning to see (and to trust the seeing) and learning to understand what a space can be coaxed to say about its creator and to evoke for those lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a very personal vision. It does so with an execution that is equal to Kahn's own standards: her witty, brisk-but-intimate writing somehow manages not to leave anything out, and the photographs are so luscious they make you want to lick the page.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Trip Into Kahn's Inner Space, January 8, 2003

By 

Linda Fields (New York, N.Y. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Your Space: Personalizing Your Home and Office (Hardcover)

An easy, colorful read with beautiful color photos of Kahn's world. Any chapter can be read individually or as part of the whole. Her explorations into the world of design and aesthetics are methodical but by no means boring. This is not your mother's decorating book.

For a lively trip from Central Park West, to Harlem, to Connecticut take this book for a ride.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Art Smart - Design Saavy, June 22, 2002

By 

Marc Nochella (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Your Space: Personalizing Your Home and Office (Hardcover)

This book solidly places the creative inspiration of collectors on par with that of designers and artists. Any reader, by following the path that Kahn has set for herself, gets permission to embark on their own path of discovery and exploration, and with the benefit of the copious lessons the author has learned along the way! Clearly, thoroughly and in a enlightened way, acquiring things of beauty and originality is made accessible to beginners and made fun for the jaded....both will be preparing for the thrill of the hunt!!!