Rating: 
Summary: If Martha Stewart was a punk hipster...
Review: ...she would have written this fab little book.Do you enjoy:
- French country decor?
- Rachel Ashwell and her "Shabby Chic" lifestyle?
- extreme minimalism? If so, you might not "get" this book. If you're looking for fun, wacky, goofy, off-the-wall concepts of how a person's living space can be decorated, you will probably get a kick out of this book. I did. I don't know if there are many people who would try and duplicate (in their own homes) the rooms shown in this book - many look pretty unlivable. Then again, the same could be said of the opulent (and often overdone) showhomes in any issue of "Architectural Digest." I love this book because of the creativity and the total abandon with which many of these rooms are decorated. I wouldn't paper the walls of my powder room in cheap, dime-store toys, or re-do my living room with velvet couches, swag lamps and statues of David...but there are some who have the moxie to do so, and it's all here for you to gawk at in full glorious color.
Rating:
Summary: don't knock it if you don't get it.
Review: It seems like so many people have reviewed this book on the basis of one or two of the rooms in it: the comments about clutter and nightmare "before" rooms are applicable to perhaps 1/4 of the homes shown in the book, and some lovely examples of the opposite have been ignored. PAD is not about junk-hunting at flea-markets or creating a "look", unless the look you want is retro-modern-surrealism. It is very much about subcultural decorating and lifestyles, and unlike most current design books I've seen, it has some very original and interesting projects in it. The flame pit is great (and extremely adaptable); the resin coasters are something you'd pay big bucks for in a hip little downtown store; the porno lamp is probably a really bad idea and I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. A decorating pitfall that people fall into is purchasing ill-made basics with no personality from cheap chain stores; PAD will rescue you from ugly chintz bedcovers. Many negative reviews of this book have failed to mention that it is text-heavy, which both expands on the photos and puts them in context. A book with a page of cocktail garnishes, plants it might be hard to kill, and directions on how to make a shag-fur covered television cabinet is definitely *NOT* aimed at the Tasteful Decor crowd, so I don't know why those people bothered and why they're bothering to complain: this is Urban Outfitters, not Pottery Barn. This book is for kitsch fanatics, art freaks, and people with a little bit of punk rock in their soul... all others should beware.
Rating: 
Summary: A cluttered mess
Review: Just when the rest of the design world is cleaning up and ditching the clutter, this book comes along to show you how to clutter up your rooms again. What the book shows is junky and out of step with decorating today. I got this book by mistake awhile back. I hated it then and it still looks just as bad to me today.
Rating: 
Summary: Decorating for the just-left-of-center
Review: A fun, insanity-inducing opus. "Pad" is an extremely funky and fun book that's filled to it's velour-covered brim with colorful pictures, how-to projects and ideas for ways to decorate your apartment or home without care. The book espouses a philosophy of freeing one's self from the bloated traditions of mainstream color wheels, towel rack-and-toilet schemes and expensive remnants, and finding yourself in the space. Pictures of some of the homes featured are just out of this world, if not truly alien in origin. It's not as loungey or laid-back as I thought it might be - this isn't that cool, after-7 bachelor pad book you're looking for, but it's close - but it does have great, accessible text that's hard to find in most decorating books. It's fun, listing movies and music to have for such an environment, and I recommend it for anyone who's into decorating or home-making...especially cats in search of some guidance about sanctuary-creation philosophy.
Rating:
Summary: Decorating for the just-left-of-center
Review: A fun, insanity-inducing opus. "Pad" is an extremely funky and fun book that's filled to it's velour-covered brim with colorful pictures, how-to projects and ideas for ways to decorate your apartment or home without care. The book espouses a philosophy of freeing one's self from the bloated traditions of mainstream color wheels, towel rack-and-toilet schemes and expensive remnants, and finding yourself in the space. Pictures of some of the homes featured are just out of this world, if not truly alien in origin. It's not as loungey or laid-back as I thought it might be - this isn't that cool, after-7 bachelor pad book you're looking for, but it's close - but it does have great, accessible text that's hard to find in most decorating books. It's fun, listing movies and music to have for such an environment, and I recommend it for anyone who's into decorating or home-making...especially cats in search of some guidance about sanctuary-creation philosophy.
Rating:
Summary: If Martha Stewart was a punk hipster...
Review: ...she would have written this fab little book. Do you enjoy:
- French country decor?
- Rachel Ashwell and her "Shabby Chic" lifestyle?
- extreme minimalism? If so, you might not "get" this book. If you're looking for fun, wacky, goofy, off-the-wall concepts of how a person's living space can be decorated, you will probably get a kick out of this book. I did. I don't know if there are many people who would try and duplicate (in their own homes) the rooms shown in this book - many look pretty unlivable. Then again, the same could be said of the opulent (and often overdone) showhomes in any issue of "Architectural Digest." I love this book because of the creativity and the total abandon with which many of these rooms are decorated. I wouldn't paper the walls of my powder room in cheap, dime-store toys, or re-do my living room with velvet couches, swag lamps and statues of David...but there are some who have the moxie to do so, and it's all here for you to gawk at in full glorious color.
Rating:
Summary: Colorful...
Review: I agree that this is a great coffee table book. Don't knock the decor as being god-awful tacky, bc I think that's the point. It's the interior design equivalent of the book Fruits by Shoichi Aoki, which is a bunch of photos of Japanese urban hipsters wearing outrageous and creative outfits. A few adventurous folks may be inspired to try these designs, but the book is entertaining and fun to look at even if you don't. On a personal note, I'm totally going to make the "porno-chic" lamp for my apartment next year.
Rating:
Summary: If you get this, don't call it good design
Review: It's amazing to me personally that someone can put out a book and called it a design book when they have no credentials at all. Reading reviews of this book, I see that we're playing a kind of 'emperor's new clothes game' in which few people are willing to stand up and say, 'Hello, people! This stuff is BAD." It is bad, not cool and out of the box and chic and trend setting. Just bad.
Rating:
Summary: Not fun, not helpful. Just awful.
Review: I don't want a kitschy coffee table book full of pix of a lot of godawful rooms. But that is what I inadvertently bought when I picked this up. Fine, so this guy has an attitude and wants to thumb his nose at the world. Good for him. But I'm just out of college and looking for cool ideas and help so I can start living the way I want to live. This book was a costly mistake. Cool isn't cool if it's bad taste, ya know.
Rating: 
Summary: A guide to ultra-living? That's a little misleading.
Review: "Pad" is disguised as a DIY how-to guide for making your living space swanky as all heck, and for that tiny mislead, it loses a star. "Pad," while certainly concerned with interior design for the young adult, makes, if nothing else, a brilliant coffee table book. Instructions for crafty-projects are included, but that doesn't make the book particularly "instructive." More often than undertaking any of the tasks included in the book, I found myself instead looking from section to section at all these crazies' interior design sense, and saying, "Oh! Cute idea!" a little less often than I said, "Ugh! I can't believe they did that!" and "Oh my gosh, she ruined her wall!" Thusly, this nutty book is actually rather traditional, in that it's just like watching any interior design show on cable--picking out which design(er)s we like, which we don't, considering ideas we might want to steal, then never putting the ideas to action. Eh. But a nice coffee table book, to be sure.
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