Romantic Style: Lovely Homes, Pretty Rooms, Gentle Settings

by Linda Hallam

-- Beautiful photography for whole house designs combined with how-to projects.
-- Nine houses from Maine to California offer ideas and inspiration to live the romantic, carefree life.

Genres: Design, Nonfiction, Crafts

216 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2002

Reviews

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

Visually, this book delivers. At first I was overwhelmed by all the visually stuff and ornate photographs, but once I started deciding what I liked and disliked in each photo, I found the book to be useful. BHG seems to think that "romantic" equals ornate, gilded, large, packed rooms, etc. Thankfully, there are some photos with more simple, spare, and romantic inspiration rooms.

I am not a maximalist, and I get overwhelmed by rooms that are packed with furniture, decorative items, heavy drapes, etc. I look at carpets and drapes as dust catchers and homes for things causing me to sneeze, sniffle, and cough.

If you can take this book page by page and break the photos down with your eyes, you can find the elements that appeal to you.

One thing I disliked is the publisher's idea to use fancy font that resembles cursive that's hard to read on gold.

While this was a library book, I'd still buy it. It was published in 2002, making it 22 years old, but it holds up well with a lot of classic design ideas.

I do find that decorating books by legacy publishers tend to be better than the "mommy blogger got a book deal" decorating books.

[Joanne G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty photos of attractive rooms.