Interior Design Books

Poor "Colonial Home" magazine. After decades as the premiere magazine of antique American homes, it changed its name to "Classic American Home" and then was out of business in the ad-pages slump that followed September 11th, 2001. It was a great loss to those who love viewing and learning about historical American homes.

Fortunately, even if you were never a "Colonial Homes" subscriber, you can still indulge your love for classic American style via Rosemary Rennicke's lovely "Classic American Decorating." The homes features herein are all taken from the pages of the magazine, and they amply show the magazine's high quality and standards. There is no country-kitschy stuff here--everything is distilled to its purest essence, whether it is a keeping room in an 18th century Connecticut home or the bedroom in a high-rise Manhattan apartment building.

The book is divided into chapters covering architecture, furniture, accessories, and so on. The photography is handsome, and the book design is pleasing to the eye. Rennicke's text is admirable not only for its insight, but for its restraint. She leads the reader gently along, pointing out what is of interest without being intrusive or overly pedantic. This is a coffee table book home-lovers will turn to again and again for a sweet indulgence in domestic day-dreaming.

This is one of the best books on color theory I have found. I like pastel colors best and I am glad to have found a book specifically focused on them. The color themes really help you set the right mood and with such a variety of color combinations for each one anyone can find something to suit their taste. It has been an invaluable reference tool in helping me decorate my home.

The book starts out with a brief explanation of the color wheel and a color chart. It is then divided into several color themes. These include blush, ripe, ambrosial, sweet, appealing, fresh, calm, refreshing, charming, old-fashioned, ethereal, vivacious, iridescent and subtle. Each theme focuses on a color or group of colors such as yellow-green for fresh, violet for ethereal and blue-violet for old-fashioned. Monochromatic, analogous, complementary, clash, split-complementary, and neutral color schemes are shown in color swatches for each theme. A process color conversion chart is included in the back.

This book is set up like the Color Harmony Workbook, but has a few less color schemes for each color theme, although there are many color themes here that are not contained in Home Color Workbook. This is a great addition to those volumes or a less expensive substitute for those who just like pastels color schemes. In the back there is a process color conversion chart and 152 cut-out color swatches with CMYK information on the backs.

This book is great if you can't decide what color to paint a room! Love it!

Its great to see a book finally for architecture on how to do color for buildings - with methods, materials and much on the color design process. This is a very practical apporach that i enjoyed reading and thinking about in my own work. Having to select materials, i.e., bricks and paneling and paint colors is never easy and this book makes clear what the strategies are all about for residential and commercial projects as well as architecture of various size, shapes and scale. I like the way the author organizes his approach and the visuals and layout design are clean and quite interesting. Good job and a big help!

Nearly thirty step-by-step home projects are outlined in over a hundred color photos and provide a more relaxed approach to developing a home style. Don't expect a major guide to repainting the place: it's a decorator's handbook which uses plenty of easy embellishments for its enhancements, from turning vintage hats into unique lampshades to using a wall purse to help organize. Quimby's Color, Create, Decorate: Creative, Fresh Ideas & Decorating Techniques advocates exploring outside the color world norm and taking risks to develop unique style - and advises on how to make it work.

Color, Space and Style is a plethora of useful information, tips of the trade, ideas, and resources at your fingertips.

The content is easy to read and understand with well thought out categories.

Full color pages outline the design process from start to finish.

It is obvious a great deal of energy, time and effort went into its creation. A must read for anyone interested in interior design and design related fields, in fact would be an excellent tool in a teaching environment.

Bravo!

This is the book to purchase when you are in the first phase of decorating or redecorating your home. Jennie L. Pugh has given us a book that is logical and aesthetically ordered. Her chapters concerning color schemes for bedrooms are integrated and flow excellently. For a complete remodel of the house we purchased, I felt a bit overwhelmed in having to make decisions for three bedrooms. I looked and walked away from many other bedroom design books. And then I discovered this one. Well lit and encompassing photography. Simple but valuable hints. Quick explanations of what moods and effects colors create. Color swatches you clip from the book to take with you when you start shopping. These are only a sample of what is provided to make your interior design process a joy. Purchase this book and your bedrooms will start to come together!

It is a typical and copiously illustrated in color survey of 17 works (projects of boutiques) of one design firm (architect). Like other architectural monographs from l'ArcaEdizioni sized 9 1/2 x 13 3/8 inch, it is beautifully published on glossy paper, and full of excellent color photos, but also fewer b&w small technical drawings (plans, sections). There is a short introduction to the architect on a few pages, then the main part presenting architectural works, and ending lists of (selected) projects (credits) and office architects (biographies), etc. Each architectural work is depicted on several pages by illustrations and a title page with a short text description. The book is beautiful, well published, printed, and bound. It is slightly less technical and more album-like than the Architectural Monographs (No) series (or their present equivalent) published by Wiley-Academy (formerly Academy Editions / St. Martin's Press or Rizzoli).
CONTENTS:
5 INTRODUCTION
10 JIL SANDER (PARIS) Michael Gabellini
20 JIL SANDER (CHICAGO) Michael Gabellini
26 THE END Eduard Samsó
36 JEAN-PIERRE VICTIM'S Eduard Samsó
46 JERRY PAIR VTS & Associates
54 GALLERY Studio Granda
62 EVA Studio Granda
70 ONE STUDIO OFF Ron Arad
82 DOLCE & GABANNA (Uomo) Claudio Nardi
90 DOLCE & GABANNA (Donna) Claudio Nardi
100 SAN FRANCISCO STORY Claudio Nard
108 TEMPUS FRCH Design Worlwide
116 GREAT MALL FRCH Design Worlwide
124 HAGGAR FRCH Design Woriwide
132 DR. BAELTZ Shigeru Uchida
138 JOSEP FONT Josep Foni
148 OCKY'S Torsten Neeland

Plenty of interior design books focus on large spaces and soaring interior structural designs; but much fewer tackle the bigger challenge of working with a very small or compact interior space - and that's where the lovely COMPACT INTERIORS comes to the rescue. Over twenty case history studies of small homes display innovative, different methods used to make the most of their limited space. Chapters don't stop with large-sized glossy photos either: reviews of materials used, technical specifications, and commentary by the designing architects involved create a diverse set of insights perfect for a sourcebook which may be used as either an architect's inspirational guide or a homeowner's idea resource. Very highly recommended.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

Fuad Jabali has written on a subject which has immense importance in islamic history.Despite this, few works in english have been dedicated to this event and none so far [ as far as i know ] on the attitude of companions in this conflict.There was a great need for a work like this since both sunni and shia books in english rarely mention the minor companions and are obsessed with either a few major ones[sunnis] or Ahlulbayt[shias].

Prof. Jabali writes without sectarian bias and uses the most authentic biographies avalible.His recording the exact arabic expressions used in the primary texts also helps greatly.Use of tables although inconvenient is helpful when comparing between different comapnion groups.It also explodes many popular myths like shia propoganda claiming that companions abandoned Ali and the sunnis claiming that very few sahaba participated in the conflict.
My suggestion would be to add to this book esp. appendix VIII references about their political inclinations from other books of history that would give a more complete picture
e.g Hajjaj b Amr was a spy of Ali in Egypt and an envoy to syria , also a poet who wrote on his behalf
Abu Qatada in Tabari is mentioned as giving support to Ali in Medina

Best to read it with Madelung's "succession to Muhammad" which gives a great account of events during the reign of Ameer-ul-momineen Ali ibn AbiTalib.