Family Spaces: Creative Solutions for Family-Friendly Interiors

Explains how to use a cost-effective, creative approach to transforming one's home into a personal sanctuary with the help of eclectic, individual touches, seasonal accents, innovative storage solutions, and other elements designed to overcome common design problems. Read more Continue reading Read less REVIEW
"There's at least one stealable idea (usually more) on every page..." -- Budget Living magazine, October 2003

...there's at least one stealable idea (usually more) on every page.. -- Budget Living, October 1, 2003 FROM THE INSIDE FLAP
From French flea market style to city chic, the real-life homes of real-life people usually have one thing in common: the heart and soul of their design comes from personal inspiration. And what inspires more than one's own family? Family Rooms explores unique and personalized blends of old and new, function and elegance, budget and beauty, each creating a timeless look while accommodating the inevitable evolution of family life. Using seasonal accents, unique storage solutions, and a careful attention to a cost-effective budget, eight every-day families have discovered how to transform their homes into personal sanctuaries. Walk through the front doors and into the lives of eight real families who have met the challenge of modern living with their own sensible and stylish solutions-all without the help of a "professional designer."

FROM THE BACK COVER
Affordable family-style design for all rooms of the house. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tirzah Ortiz-Wanlass's design work has been featured in Better Homes and Gardens, Decorating, and Country Home magazines, as well as HGTV's Awesome Interiors and Interiors by Design. She is a contributing editor with Meredith Publications. P. Jonathan Ortiz is a graduate of St. Mary's College, California and is in the design and home retail industry. Widely sought after for his unique and distinctive designs, he creates personally tailored spaces for individuals and corporate clients.

EXCERPT. REPRINTED BY PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Have you ever been standing in line at the grocery store and happen to glance at the magazine racks strategically placed around you? You're bored, a little tired, and your eyes lethargically roam across those magazines and their glossy covers. Then one catches your eye. It displays a sumptuously lavish master bedroom complete with gold gilding and four posts with an obscenely oversized bed wrapped in layers of linens that cost more than you could sell your right kidney for. Beside the bed, a massive fireplace glows with the warmth hum of a neatly burning pile, and on the floor a plush Persian rug invites you to stretch out. Your mind starts to wander into delectable dreams of the beautiful lifestyle and you think, "If only I could get onto one of those TV shows where they come and transform my house . . ." You pick up the publication and flip through it until you reach the cover-page article. After multiple images of remarkable rooms and fabulous furnishings, just when you feel your personal creativity store has been replenished with the inspiration to make your home "just like this one, " you read in the article's last paragraph that this is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Hollywood and the wonderful result of Mr. Interior Design and his entourage of design experts for the affordable fee of, oh, just a gazillion dollars! Just then, a bubble-bursting voice intrudes your daydream to inquire if you want "paper or plastic, ma'am?"

Don't be embarrassed; we've all been there, gazing longingly at the multitude of palatial homes belonging to people we will probably never meet. All just to have that posh Persian rug ripped right out from beneath us by the stifling truths of an all-too-often economically fueled reality. For those of us who live in the real world of finance- and time-concious budgets, with kids or a career or whatever, those magazines and/or decorating books are little more than a frustrating tease.

Get out of those books and get into ours.





Read more Continue reading Read less