Room Redux: The Home Decorating Workbook

Rating:
Summary: Good teaching and ideas on a budget
Review: Great all around reference book with good information. Gives you theory you can understand and valuable facts like standard furniture dimensions, color theory, space requirements in a room and helpful hints all throughout. Wonderful to find a book like this that has everything in one place. A keeper in the library!

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommend
Review: Great all around reference book with good information. Gives you theory you can understand and valuable facts like standard furniture dimensions, color theory, space requirements in a room and helpful hints all throughout. Wonderful to find a book like this that has everything in one place. A keeper in the library!

Rating:
Summary: Good basics in a unique, tabbed format
Review: I agree with an earlier reviewer who said that this book is helpful, because it explains design theory and underlying principles. However, I have found that another book, titled The New Decorating Book (by Better Homes and Gardens magazine), does a better job of this. It's beautiful but also serves as a teacher. I learned about The New Decorating Book last winter when my daughter brought it home from school where it's being used to teach interior design basics.

Rating:
Summary: Cover is more interesting than the book turns out to be
Review: I read Room Redux: The Home Decorating Workbook with great pleasure over the holidays. It offers a fine concept backed by solid information and intelligent organization, to be sure. What really struck me, however, is its sharing of theory and underlying principles so freely and openly--as the best teachers always do. This is a very generous book, and the authors must be very special people.

Room Redux is a must-read for those who would decorate intelligently; i.e., by combining rational understanding with the expression and satisfaction of individuality.

Rating:
Summary: Best Decorating Book on the Market
Review: I was looking for a basic, in-layman's-terms book that would give me a general knowledge of home decorating, and this book definitely did that. This book is like a decorating 101 course. It has pop-out furniture pieces that you can use to rearrange your furniture, pockets to keep paint samples and clippings handy, graph paper to sketch out room designs, etc. I really liked the chapter on color, too. My husband and I are building our first home, and this book will really come in handy as we go through the building process. I'm glad that I bought it.

Rating:
Summary: Clear, concise explanations make this book easy to use
Review: I've been trying to find a book that makes decorating easy. Finally, I've found it. Room Redux is written clearly and is organized in an easy to use fashion. Chapters are arranged well and the suggestions aren't self-serving; they actually help. Even though there are no photos, the illustrations help guide the reader through room makeovers.

A great read.

Rating:
Summary: Good teaching and ideas on a budget
Review: No, there are no photos, just sketches. But I have plenty of decorating books with pretty pictures. This one teaches how to decorate in a way that surpasses any other book I own. Each chapter starts with questions about the topic of the chapter and what you feel you want to do with your room in response to that question. By the end of the chapter, you can answer the questions for yourself.

For example, the chapter on color has ten questions: 1) Are you worried about keeeping colors consistent from one room to the next, 2) Are you using color to adjust the personality of your room, 3) Do you want just white, 4) Are you trying to revise the look of the colors of your room wothout overhauling your entire scheme, 5) Are you trying to duplicate a color you fell in love with on vaction 6) Is the quality of the light getting in the way of you color choices 7) Are you wondering whether you should paint the same color over everything on your walls, including the moulding, 8) Are you looking to color to make your room feel larger, smaller, taller, shorter, or wider, 9) Are you nervous about using a wild color you find yourself attracted to, and 10) Do you like the color you chose for your wall, but find its effect somewhat bland.

Determining the answers to these questions is well presented in the text. Topics in the color chapter include how light in your part of the world(northern hemishpere, though it would be easy to adapt to the southern hemisphere) affects color, depending on which window it's coming in through and the season. How changing light bulbs can change the effect of the color. How colors interact with each other and why you should be careful about what background you place those carpet squares against when trying them out. I've tried combining contrasting colors and this is the first book that really tells me why it didn't work when I did it and how to make it work better. It tells me why I hate my kitchen. What you learn here will let you look at those picture books so you can decide what makes the room work.

So many good sections and tips. Many of the tips can be used by someone in an apartment who can't paint the walls, and there suggestions in all price ranges. It may be common knowledge to someone trained in this stuff, but to me most of it was new and valuable. What wasn't new was so well presented it makes this book a one-stop guidebook.

Rating:
Summary: Best Decorating Book on the Market
Review: Room Redux is by far the best decorating book out on the market today. There is an incredible amount of information in this book, but it is presented in an abundantly clear and easy-to-access format. To me, it's like the Joy of Cooking for home design--for anything you need help with, an answer resides within. You also get the feeling that the authors are good friends talking you through each step, unlike so many dry and boring decorating books out there. Lastly, there are wonderful features to this book like pockets for paint chips and fabric swatches and cut-out furniture pieces for floor plans. If you're going to buy one decorating book, this is the one to buy. And, believe me, I know--I've read just about every book out there!

Rating:
Summary: Incredibly practical and helpful
Review: The problem with all those Other decorating books is that they're all glitz and no brain...or all money and no real world budget...or all fancy-shmanzy photos and no explanations, helpful pointers, etc. You get the picture. This book, on the other hand, EXPLAINS things (what a concept). For example, I was delighted to find a chart listing different kinds of wood, what they're typically used for, how well they take staining, etc. Another list describes fabrics, and how formal/informal they are. Wonderful for the clueless and dirt-poor freshly college-graduated couple.

Rating:
Summary: information given is right out of a textbook
Review: This book is what interior designers (and art majors)learn in college textbooks. Rhythm, balance, harmony, scale, colors (primary, etc.) This book is definitely not for the novice, unless really serious about decorating. The floor plan exercise is good, but work. The templates & graph paper are a great addition, as you don't need to purchase extra materials. The chapter on fabrics is technical, explaining all the different types of fibers, yet some of the advice given on mixing and matching fabrics leaves one confused. (I liked Fabrique Technique, a book on coordinating fabrics) The chapter on furniture asks questions that need to be answered by the reader because not every salesperson asks the right questions to a potential customer. The in depth information contained is quite extensive, and is all you would ever need to be a savvy consumer. The chpater on lighting has a great placement chart that is quite useful. Again, another information packed chapter on windows, but not for the novice. This is definitely a book you'll refer to time & time again for many years.