Interior Design Books

This is an absolutely fabulous book containing both ideas and simple to follow instructions for a multitude of window treatments, bedding & accessories. Numerous color photos will inspire your imagination and give you the knowledge to create rooms that would cost thousands of dollars if you hired a decorater. Don't be fooled by the title....it will take you far beyond the bedroom. Use what you learn here about color, patterns and design and use them throughout your house for a rich professionally decorated look. A must have book.

I actually found this in the bargain books section at Borders about a year ago for $2.99! It's fantastic! The beginning explains not only tools you'll need, but tools of the trade in general. It has photographs of every tool, and explains the uses. After every topic, there is a chart which sums up the uses, and how to's. For example, it has a chart on pretty much every surface you might consider painting, and explains the best ways to clean, and prep them. The recipes for the paint colors are clear, and the instructions to acheive the finished looks are also clear. As with any book, it is important to read it, not just look at the pictures, and as with any instruction manual, it is important to take a chance and actually try the project yourself. Overall, even if I had paid $20.00 or more, I would've been happy with this book. It's great for a personal project library.

I own dozens of decorative stamping publications, but this is probably the only one I would take to a desert island with me.

Many rubber stamping books cover only beginner techniques, but this book encourages a stamper to be an artist, with ideas for stamping on every surface in the house but the family dog!

Inks, paints,and surface preparation are discussed in detail, giving the stamper the needed guidance while encouraging creativity. Projects are detailed, but leave room for the personal touch.

If you are interested in "art experimentation" like I am, this book will help you have sucessful results, instead of frustrating messes!

An ideal book that lent us all kinds of possibilities for the design of our new home. The full page photos and simple floor plan drawings made this book very valuable to our architect and interior designer. It was a terrific way of conveying what we liked and envisioned. Concrete, who would have ever thought of a resurgence? We're glad it's surfaced again

A book with a European flair. Very stylish, very cozy, yet affordable suggestions (a veritable miracle). Most applicable to city dwellings, but also simply beautiful for all aspects of interior design (color photographs throughout). It has sections with general comments on space organization (adding in addition to reorganizing existing space), then room-by-room suggestions, including a section on single-room living. Finally, the appendix has plans for building some simple useful pieces. It treats all aspects of a home--floors, walls (with windows and window treatments), furniture, room proportions, color, plants. I return to it often for ideas even now that I do not have a space crunch. If you want a single design book for your whole home, this is the book. I have yet to find another one as beautiful and as useful.

A visual treat for anyone who appreciates a bit of fantasy and/or enchantment in our living environments... A look into spaces (both personal and commissioned including some very famous and luxurious hotels) designed by some of the worlds most creative designers, architects, artists, etc. like: Philip Starck, Mary McFadden, Mattthew Williamson, and my favorite... the home of artist Michelle Oka Doner whose sculptural creations (inspired by nature) are integral to her gold gilded and pure white environment. This is not a "how to" book by any means... Rather a journey to exotic and indulgent places... A feast for the eyes and imagination!

Sylwanowicz presents compelling arguments that the key concepts of Duns Scotus' metaphysics derive from a common metaphysical inspiration: that essence is by nature self-moving. He contrasts this with the Thomistic inspiration: essence as the passive recipient of an act of existence which it delimits. One comes away from the work with an appreciation of the unique genius of Scotus, an increased capacity to view Scotistic metaphysics from within, rather than through the lens of another system. This is achieved with a minimum of polemical attitude toward Aquinas and ought to be welcomed by all, regardless of philosophical formation. Neither is the analysis for historians of philosophy alone. A reading of this book can only have salutary consequences for anyone who actively considers these issues on their own. Expect to be challenged but to come away enriched.

This book does a great service to those of us who have been struggling with the elusive Nagarjuna. It reveals the depth of his roots in early Buddhist tradition (building on and correcting the work of A.K. Warder and David Kalupahana) and allows his works to be read as a vibrant repristination of basic Buddhist insight. Particularly interesting is the account of the early Buddhist antecedents of Nagarjuna's formulation of the two truths theory (conventional and ultimate truth). Harris also shows how close were the Yogacara (mind-only) and Madhyamaka (emptiness) traditions and how inapposite is the later labeling of them as rival "schools." He blames many of the distortions in our view of Nagarjuna on his most famous commentator Candrakirti, whom he accuses of radicalizing the contrast of the two truths at the expense of conventional truth (pp. 116-17). Candrakirti accuses Yogacara of absolutizing a conventional doctrine (which he has no quarrel with as such), but Harris claims that the Yogacarins "actually agree with him that all dogmas must be, by definition, non-ultimate" (p. 164). Candrakirti's sparring-partner Bhavaviveka attacks Yogacara from the opposite angle, accusing it of devaluing conventional reality; this again misses the substantial overlap of the Madhyamaka and Yogacara traditions. Harris is a master of the sources, which he quotes and translates illuminatingly throughout. He evokes the realm of nirvana and emptiness, the quiescence of fabrications, in lucid pages that have "the savor of liberation." He asserts that emptiness is a state of mind, not an ontological reality, and perhaps goes too far in this direction. He talks of ultimate reality as "an ontologically indeterminate existence realm" (p. 131), which is rather opaque and unhelpful diction. What he means is that it lies beyond the grasp of dualistic categories of being and non-being. (Alas, there are an appalling number of misprints, despite the high price of the book.)

"Converted Spaces" is one of those types of books that makes you want to jump into the pictures and take immediate tours of those incredible spaces. Living in a space that's not designed to be lived in is to live surrounded by character and originality. I particularly loved the lofts in Jersey City (NJ) with the quadruple height ceilings. I did not know that lofts with 50ft ceilings even existed. Apparently Wells Fargo built the building at the turn of the century as a carraige house. We don't have anything like that in Soho. That's Amazing!!!

Students of architecture, hotel and commercial building design, and travel will all find much to attract in Cool Hotels: India, Maldives, Sri Lanka: it features the best hotels of the region, from rustic to big city, and discusses craftsmanship, artistic d‚cor, and landscaping qualities which make each hotel exceptional. The meat of Cool Hotels lies in its full-page color photos of both interior and exteriors of featured hotels.