House Beautiful 750 Designer Secrets: Exclusive Design Ideas from the Pros

There are lots of fancy pictures, but this book has incredibly redundant tips ("197: Bring the outdoors in with massive windows and walls punctuated with glass doors"; "246: Flood a room with natural light by installing floor-to-ceiling windows and glass doors"). Making matters worse, the redundant tips are geared towards incredibly wealthy people ("322: Place a tub right next to a window in a bath that has an ocean view"). If you're not obscenely wealthy, this book isn't very useful.

I love looking at House Beautiful books. I find the pictures to be inspirational. However, I usually don't think the text is very informative. I was pleasantly surprised to find House Beautiful 750 Designer Secrets to be an exception to the rule. It does contain beautiful photographs, but the "secrets" are useful and/or inspirational comments by designers. I have to admit I don't recognize the names of most of them, but I find the information to be consistent with other interior design/decoration books I have read. The quotes may not always be particulary earthshattering, but there were enough good ones to justify giving House Beautiful 750 Designer Secrets a 5. Out of 750 quotes you are bound to find something that is useful to you! Now, just to give you a clear picture of what the book does and does not have to offer: no where is there a set of explicit instructions for how to incoporate the comments dirtectly to your home, but that is not the intention of the book. It is suppose to make you think for yourself how to add your own sense of style to your house. The book is set up so that there is a picture or two on a page and quotes by several different designers. The pictures illustrate the comments. I choose the following quotes because I thought that they are good advice and/or they made me rethink how I decorate my rooms. "The most important thing is what you feel when you walk into a room." Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz "Not interfering with views is decorating 101." Scott Salvator "You don't need a lot of elements to create a dynamic effect." Jeffrey Marks "Anchor a large room with a sense of symmetry." (quote from the author). "I edit rigourously for scale, form, and color." Celeste Cooper "Incorporate a common thread-such as a neutral color-to unify electric furnishings." Kelly Harmon The one drawback to the book for some people might be that the pictures portray a similar style of decoration. If you like a mix of modern and antique, you will probably like the book, but those who like other styles, may or may not enjoy the pictures in the book. However, I think that the information given by the designers applies to any style.

House Beautiful Magazine specializes in award-winning interior design presentations, so you know that when they lend their name to a collection, professionals are involved. Their top designers reveal secrets, provide room makeovers, and pack in over four hundred color photos from selected superior interiors. Utility blends with art in 750 DESIGNER SECRETS: EXCLUSIVE DESIGN IDEAS FROM THE PROS, which tells how to shape and tailor a design project for maximum efficiency and best visual results.