Description:
Living in Style Without Losing Your Mind isn't the usual tips-and-tricks guide to decorating your home. Author Marco Pasanella attempts the nearly impossible: to define style in order to help homeowners understand the difference between the stylish and the merely trendy. It's a Herculean task, but Pasanella's approach is truer to the real meaning of style than that of many other interior design books. Pasanella eschews gimmicky style tips and doesn't believe everyone should adhere to one mode of decorating. "Style is important. A style is not." Instead, he urges homeowners to look to room functions as guides to decorating. Because spaces in the home are generally used for gathering (e.g., the living room or kitchen) or retreat (such as a bedroom or bathroom), Pasanella holds that homeowners should design a space with its underlying use or dynamic in mind to help them make wise choices. Above all, rooms must be comfortable and reflect their inhabitants. "True individuality comes from honesty, not 'creativity,'" says Pasanella. He addresses some common design mistakes--for example, falling on the wrong side of the fine line between simple and spartan or cozy and cluttered, as well as the faux pas of making everything match or trying to be cool. He discusses options for home offices and computers, relevant but routinely ignored topics in other design books. Pasanella's abstractions on style can be somewhat vague or overly didactic themselves ("To be really stylish, you need a touch of bad taste"). But overall, he does an admirable job of defining a nebulous concept and giving homeowners the confidence and skills to trust themselves when decorating their homes. --Kris Law
| 
