Rating: 
Summary: Christopher can make every inch fit....
Review: Christopher is a professional at interior decorating. Little spaces are no match for him as he proves in this book. He can squeeze large instruments into tiny spaces. His contrast of colors makes little things look bigger and longer. Even if it is too big, Christopher can use lubricant to make it glide smoothly. No matter how big it is, he can make it fit.
Rating: 
Summary: Over the top decorating - and not in a good way
Review: Christopher Lowell comes so close to getting it right but unfortunately doesn't seem to know when enough is enough, not just over the top. He uses the word "merchandising" a lot and...well...his rooms often look like department store displays, so filled with things that it is hard to imagine living (let alone breathing) in those rooms. Subtract half of what he puts in the average room and you'd have a decent space. But, please, Christopher, stop before it gets tacky. A living room is not a window display in a shopping mall.
Rating: 
Summary: Out of touch with how most people live
Review: Christopher Lowell doesn't seem to get the way most people live or the kinds of homes most of us live in. I agree with the reviewer who said that there are some good ideas in this book but that they are nothing new. And the kinds of rooms shown in this book don't look typical of suburbia today. They look worse. Somehow, Mr. Lowell has missed the mark on this one.
Rating:
Summary: Out of touch with how most people live
Review: Christopher Lowell doesn't seem to get the way most people live or the kinds of homes most of us live in. I agree with the reviewer who said that there are some good ideas in this book but that they are nothing new. And the kinds of rooms shown in this book don't look typical of suburbia today. They look worse. Somehow, Mr. Lowell has missed the mark on this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Practical but nothing new
Review: Christopher Lowell is pretty good at making the most of space. It's just his taste that I can't stand. This book is practical and has some clever ideas in it, but I've seen it all before in other books and magazines.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: Christopher's use of small spaces is clever in this book, his sense of color and style always amazing. Many of the rooms were taken from a Fleetwood Manufactured Home and the transformations can give anyone hope for decorating small spaces. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Tons of fabric and fake plants
Review: Gorgeous photos and clever designs seduce the reader. Could I do this? Not unless you can build and uphoster furniture and even if you purchase ready-made uphostered items and window treatments, you'd end up with so much fabric you'd have to have the whole house dry cleaned weekly.And sadly, although Christopher Lowell's colors and layouts are tasteful, he'll never be mistaken for ace gardener and color expert Christopher Lloyd because Lowell puts fake plants in all his photos! "Even though the big bay window lets in plenty of sunlight to grow beautifully healthy plants, we decided to go with the maintenance-free artificial variety. The technology has come such a long way, nobody can tell the difference." (p. 25) What's brilliant is Lowell's anti-hoarding advice so you can enjoy your small spaces guilt and clutter free. That's a philosophy worth adopting, as are some of his other design advice. But get some live plants, puh-lease.
Rating:
Summary: Bad taste, fake plants
Review: I agree with several other reviewers that said the rooms are overstuffed and filled with fake plants. I would like to add that many of the furniture items are not functional (dinning room chair with arm-rests that come up to the table top, and therefore block any person from being able to get into the chair... there is also no room to pull out the chair.) He also makes several benches, stools, shelving into a cubic design. These all look terribly uncomfortable to sit in and likely to poke someone in the eye (for shelving). The coffee table candles & vases tower over, so people sitting there will not be able to see each other as they try to converse. The bathrooms are so crammed with nicknacks, that a person will feel like a bear in a china shop (ready to topple things over). However, I gave it a 2 star because some of the ideas are novel, and may be applied usefully in some other setting (and smaller in proportion to the room). The colors were beautiful to look at (reds, yellow, cinnomon). I liked the French style bedroom at the end, though it looked like it will take a professional to line up the wood trims perfectly and attach the faux plaster dome without getting air bubbles.
Rating:
Summary: Not practical, though pretty colors
Review: I agree with several other reviewers that said the rooms are overstuffed and filled with fake plants. I would like to add that many of the furniture items are not functional (dinning room chair with arm-rests that come up to the table top, and therefore block any person from being able to get into the chair... there is also no room to pull out the chair.) He also makes several benches, stools, shelving into a cubic design. These all look terribly uncomfortable to sit in and likely to poke someone in the eye (for shelving). The coffee table candles & vases tower over, so people sitting there will not be able to see each other as they try to converse. The bathrooms are so crammed with nicknacks, that a person will feel like a bear in a china shop (ready to topple things over). However, I gave it a 2 star because some of the ideas are novel, and may be applied usefully in some other setting (and smaller in proportion to the room). The colors were beautiful to look at (reds, yellow, cinnomon). I liked the French style bedroom at the end, though it looked like it will take a professional to line up the wood trims perfectly and attach the faux plaster dome without getting air bubbles.
Rating:
Summary: Bad taste, fake plants
Review: I couldn't find anything in this book that seemed useful. The decoration seems to me tacky and in bad taste. Some of the colors and fabrics are nice, but that's it. Instead of wasting all that space and money spent on putting pictures of himself all over the book, Mr. Lowell could have put something that was actually useful .
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