Would've been a far superior decorating book had photographs been included instead of just some drawings. ( )

This is not a How-To book in any way. The author goes back and forth between one voice of hippy-dippy advice on ""decorating in a more organic way to live life to its fullest"" and another voice of ""ottomans must be exactly three inches shorter than your sofa or else."" She also states that you should install a certain kind of lighting or paint in a certain style, but never details how it should be done.

I did enjoy the ""hippy-dippy"" parts and felt that they were nearly the only redeeming quality of this book. It should also be noted that this book was published in the early 90's, so a lot of her decorating tips are seriously outdated. She mentions that you should buy a telephone with a 10 foot cord so as not to limit your range of motion in the kitchen. Ha! She also mentions decorating around your VCR. What is *that*?! Besides the outdated technology aspects, she also mentions chintz, pastels, and wicker nearly every other sentence. Ick!

A distracting aspect of this book was an odd sprinkling of quotations having hardly any relevance to the main points placed on the sidelines of almost every page. I have no idea why these were included. The book has no photos, but there are some lovely black and white illustrations by Stephen Freeburg placed throughout.

Overall, the author's voice is like your kind-hearted aunt who is so rich that she is just out of touch with how the rest of us commoners live. For me, a ""hall"" is not a grand room that you can fit a kitchen table in- it is a narrow corridor attaching my 3 small bedrooms. Also, my master bedroom is not large enough to fit a love seat, a coffee table, and some end tables in for a sitting area. The fact that she thinks everyone's houses are this spacious is a little bizarre. She seems like a sweet version of Hyacinth ""Bouquet"" Bucket from BBC's "Keeping Up Appearances." ( )