Your Home, Your Style: How to Find Your Look & Create Rooms You Love

This book is for all levels of interest in interior design. There are so many thoughtful ideas, but also thoughtful questions to ask yourself or your clients on how to define what you want in a home. My husband and I have plenty of disagreements when it comes to organizing our home. We wanted simple, clean, low maintenance and comfortable. The advice throughout the book is helping us to reach our goal. There are ideas for every nook and cranny. Ms. Garlough explains how the strategic placement of elements in your home have big impact, without looking cluttered. We are debating painting a navy wall in our bedroom and in reading the chapter on "color", Ms. Garlough expertly points out, "a single bold color move can be a very, very good thing indeed." It will be fun to explore this option! We are using her "room-planning guidelines" to develop designs for each room. I love the sample bookshelf and coffee table ideas in the book. It's inspirational and for those DIY-ers, very doable. The photos provide excellent examples of different styles, so you can figure out what works best for you. Throughout the book, Ms. Garlough asks, "who thrives here?", which is incredibly helpful in prioritizing design ideas. Ms. Garlough's ideas are achievable, manageable and relatable if you are looking to create a space that you love. I'm so happy I discovered this book!!

Not just full of pretty pictures, but actual help on many levels about deciding what you want, how to get it, why you want it, and the psychology involved in decorating and or redecorating you home. I bought it a few years ago and just got it out to look at it again because I finally have the chance to completely redecorate the living room in my apartment. I'm finding it quite helpful in keeping me on track to stick with the look I'm after and not just buy anything I like willy-nilly. I was hoping she had some new books out but apparently not, and her blog posts and link are now defunct. That makes me quite sad.

I pre-ordered this book after seeing it on a NYT design review list, and I’m so happy I did. The day I received my copy I was immediately sucked in by the gorgeous photography, beautiful rooms, and inspiring tips. What I love about this book is the variety of styles represented and how the author doesn’t push any one design style; her approach celebrates your own taste and makes design feel fun. Plus, she’s an excellent writer, so it’s really fun to read. Super impressed and happy with this book. Would definitely recommend as both a coffee table piece and a great “workbook.”

I have lots of "aspirational" interiors books and I do love them but at the end of the day THIS is the book I'm going back to again and again for my own home and my own design questions. Do you have a best friend that comes over and sits on your sofa and helps you figure out your style dilemmas--a little straight talk express plus a little hand holding? Neither do I, which is why I love Donna Garlough's voice in this book! Totally essential purchase.

The goal of this book is to help you identify your style so you can decorate your own home. It is based on 10 questions to help determine your "design disposition": Self-expressionist, pragmatist, historian, dream weaver, tinkerer. This is a common format for similar books, although with most other books my response to the survey questions is "none of the above". In this case, I could usually select more than one answer to any of the questions with the responses being of equal values. The result is I scored equally in three of the personalities. I do actually agree with the results and can see myself as self-expressionist, pragmatist, and tinkerer all combined.After determining your design disposition, you move on to defining your aesthetic: tolerance for color, favorite finishes or materials, formality level, desire for drama, mixer or matcher.There are 8 remaining chapters:Clearing a pathWhere personality meets realityFrom pin to planSocial spacesRelaxing spacesHardworking spacesIn between spacesKids spacesOverall, I think this book will be more helpful for someone just starting out, either with a completely new space, or doesn’t have a good understanding of their personal style. I’m living in my house for 18 years now and found the book less helpful. We are more about tweaking things here and there, as opposed to starting a room out from scratch. As such, I found the book an interesting read but not a lot of value.The photos are nice, mostly vignettes and few of entire rooms. Having a more established décor, I have mixed feelings about this book. I think it would be a great resource for someone just starting out or trying to gain confidence in their style, but less helpful for an established décor.