Bunny Williams’ Scrapbook for Living

by Bunny Williams, Amy Archer (Photographer)

Bunny Williams is renowned for her glamorous design and atten­tion to every little detail in her clients’ homes. Using her incredible knowledge of design and decor, and drawing on her wealth of experience, Williams takes the reader through several homes room by room, showing creative ways to organize and add personal touches. From dining rooms (place a chest of drawers near the dining table to store flatware, napkins, place mats, and votives) to lighting (place sconces on the wall at eye level to cut the glare from ceiling lights), and pets (find interesting flat-bottom bowls for water—small Chinese fish bowls or the bottom of a porcelain tureen work perfectly!), Williams empowers the reader with her practical and inspiring tips for making a house a home.

Praise for Bunny Williams' Scrapbook for Living :

"chock full of beautiful, instructive pictures . . . many nuggets of practical advice"
-- The New York Times

Genres: Nonfiction, Interior Design, Design

224 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2010

Reviews

[Am Y · Rating 1 out of 5]

CONS

1) Terrible photos - all too dark, poorly lit, amateurish, too small, visually unappealing, and unable to show the details mentioned in the text.

2) Very bad & pointless layout: E.g. photos are repeated in a tile pattern on the opening page of every chapter - why not just put different photos instead of repeating the same one, or enlarge the photo such that it takes up the entire page, so we can see the details clearer?!

PROS

1) Some practical advice. But not much though. It's mainly stuff you'd already have thought of, or would have the common sense to figure out.

[Sam (Hissing Potatoes) · Rating 1 out of 5]

The primary layout for imagery in this book is 12 small photos in a grid pattern on the same page, which makes it visually busy and difficult to see. The accompanying text is sparse and contains nothing more than very basic "design" notes.

[Michelle Donald · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this at a garage sale for $1. After reading it I can say i wouldn't have wanted to pay more. I do appreciate Bunny William's style, the problem for me with this book was the layout. The "scrapbook" layouts are relentless in their small grid format and are poorly executed. Some of the photo pages show the same snippet of a photo just skewed to different angles. A visual disaster in a book meant to depict interior design. Shame actually. If the photographs had been better and arranged in a more appealing way the book would've been much better.

[Elusive.Mystery · Rating 1 out of 5]

In this home decorating book for the wealthy, the author with the improbable first name of Bunny, covers every room of the house and gives mostly redundant tips and advice. Based on the insipid prose, this book in fact is more a coffee table book than one meant to be really read, the printed matters acting as contrast to the generous display of small collages of photographs of cluttered, elegant rooms full of expensive tchotchkes.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not knowing who Bunny Williams is, I ordered this book for the library because so many people requested it. Given the title, I assumed it was a scrapbooking book. Because of the photos on the cover, I picked it up. Interesting photography (I love the color combinations on the page), not so interesting text.

[Maureen Flatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bunny is never wrong......another beautiful, elegant, accessible reminder that style has nothing to do w/ money.

[T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the text, but find some of the picture layouts overwhelming and too many pictures are blurry or out of focus.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great photos and a quick read - but not my favorite design book.

[Trish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was interesting. There are lots of pictures in this book.