Mary Gilliatt's Interior Design Course

WOW! THIS BOOK IS A TREASURE!! I can't believe some of the negative reviews on this site: dated photos? ugly photos? 95% of the photographs are of contemporary/modern homes??? I don't care for "contemporary/modern," and for that reason I didn't buy this book after reading that review. (Also, the photo on the dust jacket does not do this book justice. Whoever picked it should be fired.) HOWEVER, I was at the library, and, as fate would have it, this book was on the table as I walked to the ladies room. I picked it up and was mesmerized for HOURS by the wealth of information contained in its pages, the fabulous photos of many different styles, including many traditional and eclectic. Virtually every example was BEAUTIFUL, not ugly! This book is superbly written and is everything I dreamed of in regard to understanding interior design. It truly is a comprehensive "course" in interior design, yet it is not intimidating at all. I RAN home and ordered the book from Amazon, because I knew I would refer to it forever and wanted it as a part of my personal home library. The paper used for the pages is of excellent quality, the book opens and stays open easily and with little effort, and it is loaded with countless photos that will inspire and delight. Packed with plenty of well-organized technical info as well, and easy to understand. The only thing I will agree with in regard to the negative reviews is the complaint about the small print. I think they did it because otherwise the book would be 3X its current size. Fortunately, there is larger-than-normal space between each line, so it really is not all that difficult to read. It's a minor annoyance that you will instantly forget because you will be so engrossed by what you are reading. As I said, THIS BOOK IS A TREASURE! I am totally, totally pleased.

If your mind has been on other things, and you suddenly need to know all the basics, this is the book for you. All subjects are covered in a comprehensive way. This was a great help to me since I have needed to decorate a new house from scratch, and really never was acquainted with the basic ideas. If you need a really good start (and even middle and finish) try this book. I think it was well worth the price.

Good decorating tips.

This book is an excellent overview of the important elements of interior design. It is a valuable place between Architectural Digest and a university level text. I am using it to introduce my granddaughter to a possible career for her. It is informative, very well illustrated with larger format photography. And an excellent table of contents and an extensive index at the end.

Good Book.

Too much fluff. Typeface is very small and hard to read. Pictures have a yellowish cast and the room scenes look dated.

I regret I did not read some of the other below-3-star reviews before I bought this book - all of those comments are true. First of all, the text is impossible to read. One would have thought font size is a trivial point when it comes to the quality of a book, but trust me, it is not. After just 5 minutes with this book my head was swimming. Even the captions to the photos are quite difficult to read. Apart from the awful presentation, the author has little to offer readers: (1) Contents - if you are new to interior design, this book does not give any systematic, practical and to-the-point tips to get you started. Nor is it well-organized. I was expecting to learn the basics on the historical influences on style - the book does have a chapter on this topic, but it failed miserably to point out the key differences of different periods nor is it sufficiently illustrated. Everything is in a muddle. There is indeed a few glossaries of terms in the book, but I seriously wonder if it would be relevant for most amateur decorators, for example, the ones for fabric and period furniture. (2) Images - as one has to give up on reading the text of this book, one naturally turns to the photos in hope of finding design inspirations. As some of the other reviewers so rightly pointed out, the design images selected in this book is far from impressive. They may not be to the extreme of being ugly, but certainly one would find better styled pictures in any furniture catalogue, say even from Ikea. In summary, the book does not deliver what it promises in the title - I do not feel I have learnt anything useful or practical that I can immediately apply to decorating. If you are an absolute beginner to interior design and looking for practical tips on decorating, I would highly recommend the "Essentials" series ("Living Room Essentials, Bedroom Essentials, Bathroom Essentials etc) which offer easy-to-read, instructional and user-friendly knowledge. The designs featured in the books can often be easily emulated at any budget. If you are however more interested in the asthetics and styling aspects of decorating, you might find books like "New York Apartments" more inspirational as they feature stunning design projects, often by award-winning architects or interior designers.

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