“Elements of Timeless Style: Creating a Forever Home” by Erin Gates

Here's one of the two books I mentioned in my last post. It didn't quite turn out to be what I expected. I guess I would have known this if I'd looked more closely or thought harder about the title prior to purchasing, but this book is not what you should buy if you're hankering for a non-existent book entitled Designing with Books. It's more like what you should get if you're hankering for a book simply entitled Designing.

Or, more realistically, maybe Designing with Money. Because these people have way more money than I’ll ever have, and it's evident in every butler's pantry and baby grand piano and mohair sofa. But that's OK! It was still fun to look at, in a let's-see-how-the-other-half-lives kind of way. Or do I mean the other one percent? 

This book--very photo-heavy--was kind of what I imagine you would get if you bound several issues of Architectural Digest, House Beautiful, and Traditional Home magazines into a small-ish coffee-table-style book, with the difference being all of the decor was selected by one person. If this is the type of thing you enjoy looking at (and I do), you will enjoy this book. But while the interiors are certainly beautiful and striking, this stuff is not my style. Not only can I not imagine my home ever looking like this; the thought of making a transition from what I've got to magazine-worthy seems insurmountable. Even if I wanted to make that leap, I don't have the vision to do so. I look around my house and can't fathom where I would even begin. Ultimately, what I look for in this type of book is how to take what I have and elevate it. I didn't get that from Elements of Timeless Style. Instead, I got, "if you want a house that looks like this, hire a designer (AND get ready for LOTS of wallpaper)."

But! In reading this book I was inspired to reorganize our downstairs coat closet. I think it started when reading the Project Takeaways at the end of chapter 3 ("Lincoln"): "think about spaces in all dimensions . . . consider built-ins with mixed use . . . take awkward areas and utilize them . . . " following which I just happened to notice that there's about three feet of unused space overhead in our closet (which is under the stairs, thus has a slanted ceiling). So I am suddenly off and running on a new project!