Apartment Therapy : The Eight-Step Home Cure

Start : Decorating

Apartment Therapy : The Eight-Step Home Cure		Rating: (10)
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	From not enough space and too many things to not knowing what color to paint the living room walls, many of us struggle with our homes. Now Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, frequent makeover expert on HGTV's Mission: Organization and Small Spaces, Big Style, shares the do-it-yourself strategies that have enabled his clients and fans to transform their apartments into well-organized, beautiful places that suit their style and budget. Week by week, Apartment Therapy will guide you to treat common problems, eliminate clutter, and revamp even the tiniest space. Here is an eight-step process that includes: A therapeutic questionnaire to help you get in touch with your personal taste and diagnose your home's physical, emotional, and energy flow issues A prescription with recommendations for each room based on your needs and lifestyle- including tips on how to use color, lighting, and accessories A treatment plan, including regular maintenance schedules to ensure the ongoing health of your space Illustrations of floor plans and decorative examples that allow you to visualize concepts before you begin With surprising ease and without elaborate professional help, Apartment Therapy will help you clear a path through disorder and indecision- to reveal a home you'll love.

		Date Published 3/28/2006

Ratings

Rated By: Virginia Allain

From: Poinciana, FL

Rating: Rating Average

Comments: Your Home Should Reflect You
I've been interested in decorating for a long time, but now find a new approach in several books by design psychologists. House Thinking by Gallagher and Some Place Like Home by Israel are examples of this. Apartment Therapy exhorts readers "to heal their apartment, heal themselves, in gentle prose and feng-shui-like exercises."
The advice offered should work equally well for houses as for apartments. The book doesn't suggest expensive remodeling like some books do. It helps you work with what you have and make it fit your personality. There is emphasis on reducing clutter since apartment space is so precious.
I'll be looking at my home with new eyes now.

Rated By: Chloe Hitchcock

From: San Diego, CA

Rating: Rating Average

Comments: Nothing New Here
Instead of providing original ideas, the author unfortunately wastes time trying to sound like a cool pseudo-psychologist - a waste of money for us readers. For those with either apartments or houses who are on a budget and want to make their homes more beautiful and comfortable quickly, Lauri Ward's latest book, Home Therapy, is the real deal and the book to read.

Rated By: Margaret

From: NYC, NY

Rating: Rating Average

Comments: This is a GREAT book
There are so many books to choose from when wanting to fix up your home. But this book really gets to the heart of what our spaces are all about - they're about us. I don't think there's much psycho-babble at all; I think this guy knows what he's talking about. It's clear, concise, funny at times, heart-warming. It has true stories of real people he's worked with and worksheets for the rest of us to fill out so we can benefit from his knowledge.

I also found his website, apartmenttherapy.com, really helpful - it's a daily digest of ideas, news and forums about the home.

I think I'll order a few copies as gifts for friends who are struggling with their homes, like I was.

Rated By: Douglas "Doug"

From: Chicago

Rating: Rating Average

Comments: This Book was Totally Refreshing and Inspiring
While I always linger over the home decor books, there has yet been one that is down to earth and which I've actually wanted to READ. I picked this book up in the store, started reading and finished it in two days. Apartment Therapy weirdly combines the best of both worlds, true stories about others struggling with their decor and solutions that you can put to work immediately by yourself. The author definitely hits hard on the therapy side at times, but I found this refreshing. It also got me motivated and going to work on my home for the first time in over 12 months.

Rated By: WMVF

From: San Francisco, CA

Rating: Rating Average

Comments: Practical and Accessible
This won't be the only decorating book you ever need -- but it may be the decorating book you need after reading all the others.

Conventional decorating books provide plenty of fantasy fodder. This book provides a concrete eight-week plan for turning a dissatisfying apartment into an inviting home. The emphasis is not on this year's styles in drapes, on rearranging the furniture with the sofa at an angle, on how to "style" a table vignette with clever flea market finds, or even on how some kicky mid-century modern accessories will punch up your home.

Instead, it's primarily about analyzing how you live in your home and taking orderly steps to make it a more satisfying environment. The emphasis on apartments puts a focus on decluttering, as well as on breaking the pattern of "it's just a place to sleep and shower."

If you've read every design psychology book on the library shelves, you won't be bowled over by extensive new material -- but you may be motivated to muck out the back bedroom because Maxwell makes it so simple and satisfying.

Rated By: Sarah Feldman "dixielarue"

From: NEW YORK, NY

Rating: Rating Average

Comments: More Than Just Decor
I found this book very inspiring in a philosophical as well as in a home decor kind of way. His perspective on "traveling light" has really had an impact on how I see my world and my belongings. Just as Cesar Milan, the "Dog Whisperer," has insights that apply to so much more than just dogs, I found that this book's insights applied to so much more than just how to outfit my apartment. Useful and inspiring!

Rated By: Jennifer Miller

From: Orlando,FL

Rating: Rating Average

Comments: Closet, Not Apartment, Therapy
After reading some of the reviews I bought the book. Unfortunately, I feel like I wasted my money because it failed to give me what I needed: good basic ideas to make my small apartment look better and somewhat stylish. Instead, the author offers some pretty cheesy-looking ideas that would be good for a dorm room. For anyone who needs more, look elsewhere. This book should have been titled "Closet Therapy."

Rated By: FredM

From: New York

Rating: Rating Average

Comments: Invaluable reference
Those of us who live in New York City are used to trying to make the best of costly, cramped, and less-than-ideal apartments. This book provides lots of ideas that will help you transform your walk-up into that little piece of home you yearn for. Highly recommended.

Rated By: Christopher J. Wootten

From: Annapolis, MD

Rating: Rating Average

Comments: Finally. A Plan!
A "pull it all together" approach that builds on time-proven criteria for improving/optimizing just about anything in your life. The book walks you through a straight forward process of assessing you're current environment (home) & inventory (house), developing an end-state vision, creating a manageable project plan with a straight forward work break breakdown structure (with specific tasks) and budget.

The most intriguing part of this book is that the approach adapts to your budget constraints and subsequently prioritizes your plan. Based on the premise that you probably have some great stuff - only you can define what is great in your world - it provides a methodology to get rid of the stuff that isn't and create an environment builds on your best, sometimes just fixing what you already have. As a painful, yet appropriate analogy: You wouldn't have a face-lift and ignore an abscessed tooth - but many people will do that in their homes (buy a painting when the faucet has been dripping for a year).

The book has some basic style guides and rules of engagement for putting things together. But the result will clearly be a reflection of you.

The book is not something that will allow you to dog ear a page so you can run down to a design or home center and say "I want it to look like this". There are lots of books, magazines and web sites that you can pull from if that's your goal. You will end up buying stuff - to be sure - but at a minimum your purchases will be instep with what will work in your home.

BTW: I'm working with 5000 square feet and this book applies equally to large spaces.

Rated By: Courtney Garfield "Stylist"

From: San Francisco, CA

Rating: Rating Average

Comments: Eight Disappointing Steps And No Cure
Does the author think that we readers will not see through the transparency of his condesending and patronizing tone and his unoriginal ideas? Did the five star reviewers read the same book???
Mr. Gillingham Ryan takes himself way too seriously as a therapist and not seriously enough as a decorator. We readers want effective design solutions and not a lot of hype. Unfortunately, after spending hard-earned money seeking the former we are left only with the latter. Can we get a refund for the author's malpractice?
Strongly not recommended.

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