Rating: 
Summary: Awesomely Inspiring!
Review: I bought this book at a local store about a year and a half ago and I still love it! It has great ideas for unique transformations and decorating for every type of room. It includes project instructions for many of the featured items shown. I have also found that it is a great conversation piece. Everyone who comes into my home picks up this book and is fascinated by the ideas inside. I definetely recommend it!
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Summary: Beautiful, kitschy design book!
Review: A real sense of fun combines with a sense of style in this kitschy-koffee table book. Conceived and executed with an obvious affection and appreciation for its subject matter.
Rating:
Summary: If you don't DIY don't bother
Review: I'll be the first to say that most of the rooms shown in this book are, for me, un-liveable. Too cluttered, busy and ostentatious for anything except a party. [...]I don't need a style-nazi to tell me how to decorate. But build a coffee table from a surfboard, my own drink coasters or turn my favourite Tiki mug into a lamp? That 's where PAD comes in. If you need a book to tell you what your living space should look like look somewhere else, preferably far, far away. But if you know what you like and a bit of DIY doesn't scare you this book is excellent. And the punch recipes rock!
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Summary: Where else can you find porno for the whole family...
Review: I loved this book. I bought it for my niece when she turned 16. Ok I did however tape over the porno lamp page. But she's almost 18 and then she can read about how to make that lamp. This is just a great idea book. I love DIY type stuff even though I dont do much of it myself. The ideas and the creativity in this book over delivers. And sure its got a bit of kiki porno magic, we all need a little of that...
Rating:
Summary: What's not to like?
Review: This book is sheer fun and extremely inspiring. The reviewers that mention "mess" just don't get it. Sure, actually living in some of those knicknack-cluttered rooms would be nightmare-inducing, at least for me, but that's not the point. The point is that those people had a vision for their home, and didn't let a lack of funds stop them from creating it. There's a certain beauty in that, even if it doesn't accord with accepted standards of "taste" (which are usually incredibly boring anyway). And if Juan Fernandez ever needs a blank palette to work on, he's more than welcome to *my* house!
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Summary: If you're over Martha and gag in the local Pottery Barn ...
Review: this book is for you! I saw it in a bookstore, and couldn't stop thinking about it, so I went back and bought it a few weeks later. I have no desire to have the "french provincial" look or anything else very traditional in my home. This book makes me realize that not everyone wants the cookie-cutter look in their house or apartment or loft, and that's a fantastic thing. The book shows things as extreme as a Hawaii-themed dining room with a green astroturf carpet, and as minimalist as a brown room with brown felt all over the walls, brown bed coverings and headboard, and nothing adorning the walls but an oversized bookcase. And *anyone* can find some kind of inspiration in this book. My 63-year old mother decided that she wanted to do a lamp like the "Porno Chic Love Lamp" (p.52), but she was going to get a pre-bought base and use some of her family pictures as the feature pictures on the lamp.For those nay-sayers reviewers who say this book is not for them, they obviously didn't read the introduction: "Pad will not show you how to choose a color pallate, Pad will not provide instruction for selection furniture and accessories, and Pad will not serve as a guide to help you develop a 'personal style'. ... Pad is a book for the empowered, the inspired, and the creative. It's a book for people who forge their own trail, and who know how to make the very most of what they have at hand - or can find cheaply. Pad is the guerilla approach to home decorating." One other quote in the book is by one of the most extreme decorators in the book. He says, "I always dreamed that someday I'd have a big mansion with themed rooms that I'd be able to decorate with an unlimited budget. But I decided I was just going to do it now, wherever I happened to be living, and with whatever funds I had." I love this book. I love the designs, and I love how colorful the book is. I love the passions and quirky decorating styles of the designers. I love the ideas for craft projects in the book (and there are some really neat ones). The point of the book is not to design your house like the ones in the book. The owners of the homes in the book did not design them like that to impress you or me or people who write books. They designed to make themselves comfortable and happy, and that's the whole point of the book. Design a place to live that makes you happy. Some designs are extreme, some are minimalist, but all make the owners happy, and that's what it's all about, baby.
Rating: 
Summary: A disaster
Review: The premise of this book is good. As a Boomer who's been breaking the rules for decades and who's never met a flowery or chintz fabric she LIKED, I figured I'd love this book. wrong. It's just a mess inside. Breaking the rules is not an excuse for creating a mess. And there are a lot of messes in this book.
Rating:
Summary: Very funny
Review: This author is playing an "emperor's new clothes" game here. I know one can pass anything off as "style" these days, but come on! Believe that this is good design, and I probably could sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.
Rating:
Summary: Laughable
Review: I love some of the stuff in the rooms in this book, but I don't love the rooms. I so agree with the idea of breaking the rules (if they ever existed -- my mother, of all people actually says they didn't, and our home was a wild mix of styles and stuff). But I don't agree with creating a mess, which is what this book is. I'm as tired of the Pottery Barn look as everyone else, but that's no excuse for creating a cluttered mess of a room that is anything but stylish or harmonious or comforting to be in. I like rooms that stimulate, but what I see in this book is just sort of frenetic and uncomfortable to my eyes.
Rating:
Summary: Great inspiration!
Review: For those of us interested in interior decor, especially from the fifties and sixties this book is wonderful. The pictures are great, the design and lay out of the book makes it an excellent coffetable-book, it is great for inspiration and you get to se the ideas of a few very interesting people with great taste!
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