Jessica McClintock's Simply Romantic Decorating: Creating Elegance and Intimacy Throughout Your Home

by Jessica McClintock, Karen Kelly, Chris Madden (Foreword)

Award-winning designer Jessica McClintock, whose name is synonymous with romance, shows readers how to cultivate lush, delicate beauty and warmth in their own living spaces

From special-occasion wear and perfume to home accessories and furnishings, Jessica McClintock has created a lifestyle brand dedicated to romance and femininity--one that resonates with generations of women all over the world. Her San Francisco Victorian house is the epitome of intimacy and grace and has been featured on television programs and in such magazines as Victoria, Architectural Digest, Redbook, and Home Design. Now she invites readers into her home and shows them how to incorporate romantic elements into their own homes, without sacrificing their individual style or spending a great deal of time or money.

The book's special features include:

• chapters devoted to each room in the house with innovative ideas for bringing romance and comfort into every corner, including outdoor spaces

• illustrated do-it-yourself projects inspired by Jessica's décor using simple design principles, basic sewing and crafting skills, and a little imagination

• a private tour of the author's showplace home--inside and out--through 100 gorgeous, full-color photographs, shot exclusively for this book

Jessica McClintock's Simply Romantic Decorating is a blueprint for readers on how to indulge their romantic decorating fantasies with timeless style and personal flair.

216 pages, Hardcover

First published April 17, 2007

Reviews

[etherealfire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous, most of it out of my realm, but beautiful and provides a little bit of (scaled-down) inspiration. I'm never going to have a wine cellar or a Pleyel piano like Mozart played. Heck, I'm never, ever going to have a monochromatic white living space, but it is a feast for the eyes and does give great inspiration for bring a little of that romance, elegance and beauty into your home on a smaller scale. There is a handpainted/stenciling subtle tone-on-tone type project in chapter 8 that I hope to be brave enough to try my bedroom some day.

[Sheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

The pictures are mostly lovely, the prose mostly informative, but the disconnect between the two regularly got on my nerves. There are a number of passages verbally defining things like types of cloth or lace or dining room chairs, with no accompanying pictures. The sidebar on battenberg lace is on the page where (I suspect) it's chantilly lace the reader can best see; the chantilly lace sidebar is opposite a lovely battenberg lace tablecloth. She mentions cutwork in her definition of battenberg lace, but although there are a couple of cutwork pillows featured prominently in the pictures of that chapter, she never discusses cutwork per se that I saw, nor is it in the index.

I mostly just browse these sorts of books for inspiration rather than reading them cover to cover, and most of the verbal descriptions were clear enough you could likely poke around the book and find examples, but I still wanted pictures with the descriptions, perhaps because I enjoy compare and contrast sort of things.

[Meredith · Rating 1 out of 5]

If your ambition is to live in a bridal salon, this is for you. The author freely admits to having to reupholster her sofas every 18 months!!!!!! The architectural salvage industry in France must have had a huge boost just from this house. An old baroque store counter had been imported from France and turned into a kitchen sink. It made my heart fall that a beautiful object that had been used by many people a day was now in a kitchen. The "craft section" at the end will not give you the results that are pictured. It's false hope.