REVIEW: Home Sweet Home by Deborah Needleman

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We are glad to present to your attention a guest post from the interior designer of the Chambre Douce studio. Julia reviewed Deborah Needleman's book Home Sweet Home for the readers of Lifehacker and told how this book can help both her colleagues in the shop and those who want his home to have a soul and style.

Many of us have flipped through magazines with stylish interiors, but not everyone had the idea that it is quite possible to realize their fantasies on this topic. The book will tell you in which direction to move, even if you do not have a specialized education.

In the original, the book is called The Perfectly Imperfect Home, which literally translates as "perfect imperfect home." And this title fully reflects what you find inside the book.

Deborah Needleman talks about how to breathe life into the interior, reflect your personality in it, about what should be comfortable for you in the first place and “if in real life there is a place for disorder, emergencies, memories and accidents, then all this is permissible and even desirable in home decoration."

Most people have very stable stereotypes about the interior. As a rule, stamps that have taken root in society are used, for example, in the bathroom the walls are lined with tiles, in the rest of the rooms there are often the same type of wallpaper. A beautiful interior is not necessarily expensive, and the common misconception that in a beautiful interior one should sacrifice convenience in favor of an idea is debunked in the book. You will read Deborah's work and understand that you want your home to have a soul.

The book is intended for the general reader and for colleagues in the shop - interior designers, decorators. For many, it will become a guide to action, and then nothing will hold you back: illustrations are bold, flashy, stirring up the imagination. The book will help to breathe an atmosphere of warmth and comfort into every room.

It will help interior designers for several reasons. First, the book is really inspiring, if not inspiring. This is an affordable edition that is gaining popularity, which can bring us even closer to our favorite customers. There is nothing more interesting than creating an interior in tandem with a client.

Secondly, illustrations of the implemented objects of decorators known to us can make you look differently at the form of submitting sketches. I personally work not only in the technique of manual graphics, but when I resort to 3D visualization, I always make preliminary sketches. It seems to me that in hand-drawn graphics there is not only beauty and charm, but also a technical aspect. There is an opportunity and even a need to think over all the little things that will then emerge in the construction site.

Third, there is a lot of air on the pages. It's like when on a large sheet you need to compose the head of Antinous, Socrates, Caesar, or a head from nature, leaving in front of your face, with your eyes, more space for philosophical digressions, and in our case - for notes. So don't be afraid to mess up the pages, they are waiting for our thoughts and additions to the notes.

The book will help the reader interested in creating a beautiful interior in several aspects. It will not be difficult to understand them, since the book is divided into 13 chapters, each of which reveals the most important components of the interior.

I would like to cite some of them.

1. Remember that furniture is not nailed to the floor. Real life involves a little flexibility. As with so many things, from clothes to hair, a little mess is sometimes just the right thing.
2. Don't be afraid to brighten up your hallway. As a walk-through room, it will tolerate both bold wallpaper and unexpected rich colors - anything that would drive you crazy in a living room or bedroom.
3. The lesson of overthrowing the traditional dominance of chrome and ceramic tiles is well worth learning. Your bathroom doesn't need to shine like a hygiene laboratory. Like any other room, the bathroom is worth filling it with comfort and a feeling of a happy life.
4. Every room should have at least one good antique piece to give it a sense of consistency. Interiors look spontaneous and artless if there is not a single refined, solid object in them that would give solidity with its age. I will give you a hint: in every city there is a flea market, it remains only to find out where and on what days you can visit it.
5. The carpet can serve as the starting point of the palette in the room, suggesting the color of the walls and textiles, or echo the colors that are already there.
6. The optimal reading lamp height is at eye level, not overhead (contrary to many misconceptions). The right chandelier will light up your book or tablet, not your head.

Towards the end of the work, the author shares a list of good books. I would recommend listening to her tastes.

Here are some of her recommendations:

• Elsie de Wolfe, The House in Good Taste (2004 reissue of 1914, Rizzoli);
• David Hicks, Living with Design (1979, Littlehampton Book Services);
• Martin Wood, John Fowler: Prince of Decorators (2007, Frances Lincoln).

Deborah, through the book "Home Sweet Home", conveyed to many a simple idea that a beautiful, stylish interior can be created by yourself.