Garden Style (Better Homes and Gardens) (Better Homes ... (ISBN 0696209292)

Amazon.com Review:
Garden Style is a rich book of ideas for those who have sun porches, glassed-in plant rooms, areas in the home that seem to be neither outside nor inside but somewhere in between. There's advice on how to accent plant life with bright patterned rugs, glass topped tables, or wicker chairs. Also included are ideas for kitchens and living rooms "inspired" by garden style: a few gaffes here, including curtain rods made from twigs, which look, well, weird. Much more successful are pages devoted to a "miniature conservatory," like the terrariums kids buy in kits, but these are built carefully and delicately--an ecosystem small enough to fit on a kitchen shelf. For those whose potting sheds have become dark caverns full of lost tools, there's a section devoted to this often neglected but highly important room, one that, if bright and well-organized, can inspire even the most weary gardener: all the tools lined up, all the seeds and bulbs labeled and in order, full of promise. For the city dweller there's advice on roof gardens designed around the skyline, and these have a wonderful feeling of oasis and secrecy. --Emily White

A soothing, restoring sojourn in a fantasy land:
I have a single favorite place for soul restoring. It's a local plant nursery, but this one is more than that. The owners frequently change and update and relocate plants, garden items, things that hang on walls, in trees, nestle against fences, dangle from ceilings, embrace the earth, cozy in planters with fellow plants and dazzlingly different plants. The place has so many cubbyholes. After I wander this fairy world of greenery and flowery boudoirs, I leave refreshed, my mind ready for more of the knocking about that the world outside brings. A second choice is a book like "BH & G Garden Style." I can sit with a book like this and imagine life in one of these pictures of garden comfort, inside and out. This is not plant gardening but the comfort of resting and entertaining and playing next to a garden, in a garden setting, just being outdoors or indoors with the ambience of outdoors. I have numerous books like this, but "Garden Style" is really special because it has such rich, imaginative, calming, creative rooms inside and out that are "garden style." The important selling point for a book like this is how doable are the looks. There are actually affordable decorating tips here. Let me show you what I mean. Randomly opening to p. 38, I find a wicker chair with a side wooden stool, simple design, with a potted pink geranium and a colorful birdhouse. These items are available at local do-it-yourself stores or as is in others. Then surrounding the chair and stool are containers and containers of more potted pink geraniums, pink petunias, junipers, broadleaf plants--all in blue or white or clay pots, creating a calming scene to sip tea and read a book. Here's another on p. 79. Take a small drop-leaf table, paint it white, put it in a nook or empty corner or wall, add matched botanical prints, two mismatched but coordinated chairs, and top the table with an assortment of plants for a quiet garden look in the midst of indoors. One more: a mini-greenhouse in wrought iron filled with potted flowering plants set against a large window, anchored by two wicker chairs upholstered in green and white. A lovely garden look (p. 105). I am currently creating a cottage garden outside my patio where I feed the birds. Some of my ideas come from this book. See you later outside for tea and Pennyroyal dumplings from my herb book, or maybe herb scones from a scone book.

Beautiful and inspiring home design book for nature lovers.:
This inspiring book is a wonderful guide for incorporating the pleasure of nature and garden accessories into a welcoming home decor. The author provides a wide range of possibilities to blend with the wishes and desires of any home decorator. Within the pages of this beautiful resource, the reader will uncover whimsical, country, cottage, mountain, old world, British Colonial, and a bounty of other styles that are adapted to the nature lovers vision of tranquility or fun. The interiors of the vistas that have been photographed are each the product of real people who have opened their homes to the author. The author also includes a visual display of home gardening boutiques and shops from around the country which present their lovely wares to assist this enchanting approach to home decorating.

You will drool over this one...:
This has quickly become one of my favorites. Every vignette has ideas popping off the page. I'm a designer in a small design firm and we have used it with clients. The other designers got excited about it as I did. Clinets are asking us to bring the outdoors in and indoors out. This book is loaded with ideas that are practical and don't break the pocketbook.

Highly recommended:
This book has inspired me to redo many of our rooms usingsimple and easy to find garden-style accessories. ............... the fabulous sequel to this book, Garden Style Projects. I may need a new house now so I can keep using all these ideas.

Better Homes and Gardens never disappoints!:
I own many of the Better Homes and Garden books and have never been disappointed in their style. This book, as the title states, is about "Garden Style. It is a hardback book filled with many colorful photos. The book is divided into different areas regarding either living with the "garden style" or creating the "garden style" in your home. There are a few BEFORE and AFTER photos included in the last chapters, but mostly, this is a pictorial book showing how to use garden accessories, and/or garden structures in your home , your porch, your shed, and/or your garden.