New books for do-it-yourselfers
“200 Tips For De-Cluttering: Room by Room, Including Outdoor Spaces and Eco Tips,” by Daniela Santos Quartino ($39.95, Firefly)
Talk about thorough: This book may address 200 approaches to streamlining your home, but it does so in nearly 800 pages. Even so, its compact shape, measuring about 8 inches tall by 8 inches long, fits snugly in one’s lap, so it’s easily useful as a reference for people who opt to tackle an especially unruly room of their home or office. But its real, practical application could be as a guide to designing or redesigning a home from the ground up as it includes abundant photography and floor plans assembled by an author who’s a Barcelona-based architecture and design aficionado.
“New Asian Interiors,” by Massimo Listri ($50, Thames & Hudson)
It’s fitting that this author/photographers’s pedigree includes stints shooting for top architecture magazines, because this is a compilation of spaces that can be described only as awe-inspiring. Nearly any stereotype the reader may have of “Asian design” will be shattered by these homes and commercial buildings that are foreign yet inviting, creative yet approachable, high-concept and at the same time comfortable. The book spans the Asian continent to illustrate rising trends in building materials and styles. If there is a common denominator in the nearly 40 interiors showcased here, it is that most incorporate very fine craftsmanship applied either sparingly, like intricately carved teak woodwork in a minimally furnished room, or lushly, as in large, pink, dragon-shaped, terra cotta garden statuary. The overall effect drives home the idea that there is real artistry behind the world’s best design. “Woodland Style: Ideas and Projects for Bringing Foraged and Found Elements Into Your Home,” by Marlene Hurley Marshall, with photography by Sabine Vollmer von Falken ($24.95, Storey)
These rustic, back-to-nature decorating ideas and projects feel very of-the-now. But as any great hairstylist or chef worth his or her salt will report, sometimes the simplest looks are daunting and even complicated in their execution. Where an unstudied DIY decorator may collect and assemble a bushel of dried foliage only to find that their work looks more like dusty clutter than rustic-chic, here the reader learns how to identify what from nature works in decorating and why. Plus there are practical tips, like knowing when it’s necessary to secure a permit before foraging for pine cones and the like, and knowing how to store and preserve fetching foliage once it’s brought indoors. “Nature enriches us by providing a wealth of materials to create with,” Marshall writes, “and the results are often innovative, surprising, and though provoking.”
Elana Ashanti Jefferson
