[.ca] Use What You Have Decorating (ISBN 039952536X)

From Amazon.com:
Finally, finally, a practical home-decorating book for the reader who is not a millionaire! Rather than call in a professional design consultant to tell you which walls "must go" and throwing out everything you own in favor of new and expensive designer fabrics, furniture, and fixtures, Ward starts with what you already have and makes dramatic transformations by arrangement, use of color, and a few inexpensive additions of objects or materials. Her idea is to use what you already have and like, and operate on a budget you can afford to make your home more satisfying and aesthetically pleasing to you without being a slave to passing trends, fads, and radical transformations that end up making you feel like a stranger in your own home. Among the many tips and guidelines, Ward starts with the top 10 decorating mistakes that professionals all know about, but that anyone can recognize and fix. She covers diagnosing problems that jar the eyes, offers suggestions on items to banish and others to borrow from elsewhere in the home to create more visual appeal, talks about how to shop for furniture that will work with what you already own, offers tips for new homeowners and people just starting out to make older furniture work in new spaces, and covers the kinds of dramatic improvements possible through the use of the right artwork, accessories, and lighting. This is a great gift book for newlyweds, new homeowners, or anyone interested in creative, lively home decorating without breaking the bank. --Mark A. Hetts

Not for everyone:
Lauri tells you to NOT use doilies. Excuse me, Lauri, but some of us would like to protect the furniture on which the doilie lies. Besides, how on earth does doilies add to clutter? They are there to protect to furniture, in alot of cases.

Instant Decorating for Every Budget:
If there is one book every home decorator needs it is this. Without spending thousands of dollars (okay, I spent nothing!), I gave my home a fabulous makeover. Lauri Ward, the author, recommends reading the entire book and then rereading, which helped me have a better overall idea of what my mistakes were so that I was able to pinpoint them quickly, before I started moving things around. This book will probably make you ask yourself "why didn't I think of that before?" Fortunately, Ms. Ward, the pioneer of the "one day decorating" concept did and she provides the secrets for us novices and pros too who want to learn how they can do it .

Just throw all your belongings away and you'll do great!:
Get rid of stereo equipment, NEVER use refrigerator magnets! Come on.. a great designer will tell you that you can improve the look and feel of your home without sacrificing your belongings! Lauri Ward is not a great designer! I am an interior designer and more importantly, a mother. Your refrigerator looks beautiful with your child's paintings on it. Hung with, yes.. magnets! If you enjoy listening to music, why would you get ride of your speakers because some half-wit "professional designer" tells you it looks bad? Your home is still your home. While you want it to be warm and inviting, you still want it to be functional for the way you live. This can be done without spending a fortune! Just look for what attracts YOU. Your style, your favorite things. No one wants to live in a home that is always ready for a magazine cover. You want to live in a home that reflects who you are and that makes your family and guests feel at home. Save your money; don't buy this book!

Have Furniture? You Need This Book!:
This book saves the day for anyone who has been moving their furniture around and has never been able to get it right. It shows common mistakes and how to fix them quickly. No need to buy lots of new things. Even after everything looks great, this book is so handy for reference. When questions crops up about lighting, displaying art or making new purchases, it has all the answers. Your copy will get dog-earred too!

Great book! For anyone who wonders why something won't work:
I am not a decorator by nature. I'm constantly frustrated by decorating magazines, TV shows, and friends with the decorating gene who babble on about breaking "the rules" as if a person like me knew what "the rules" were in the first place. Before you can successfully break rules, you have to know what they are in the first place. All these decorator types had me frustrated and angry. They knew something, but were either unwilling or unable to share their ability to make stuff work. Laughing off a serious question about placement or colour choice with "go with your gut instinct-- it's OK to break the rules" doesn't work if your gut instinct consistently leads you in the wrong direction. I can singlehandedly prove to any designer born, that you CAN'T successfully "break the rules" at all times. I have made more than my share of mistakes that leaves my decorator friends stunned in disbelief that ANYONE could DO that!!!! NOW I'm happy! Lauri Ward's 2 books, this one and her second one TOLD ME THE RULES!!! NOW I KNOW WHY SOME ROOMS WORK AND OTHERS DEFINITELY DON'T. All I needed was someone to explain it. Lauri did. I highly recommend both books. I really don't care if some decorator types don't like people finding out the rules, or feel that someone like me will slavishly produce vanilla bland spaces. This is a book about sharing decorating tools, showing people how it works, then expecting them to go off and make their own stuff look better in their own place. BTW it's not about colour. It's all about placing furniture in a room to make it serene, calm and pleasing. People who know the rules instinctively might not care for this book but for the rest of us who keep saying HUNH??? this book is for you and me. It's going to give us the edge to put a room together and have it look good enough that our decorating friends will back off and quit giving us that pitying look. For colour and life and so forth, I recommend the Pottery Barn books, they are great. I also recommend Dylan Landis's book Elegant and Easy Rooms which I also like for the paint "recipes" for rooms that work.