Thursday, September 9, 2010

Book Review ~ Nell Hill's Style At Home

In 1981, those of us who can't decide on just one "style" got lucky when Mary Carol Garrity opened her eclectic store called "Nell Hill" (named after her Grandmother) in Atchison, Kansas.
Garrity says she attracts customers with a unique product mix offered at competitive prices. "I like to think we work a little harder and dig a little deeper to stock interesting items." she explains.

Then in 2001, the same afore mentioned indecisive folks got lucky again when she wrote a 123 page book titled "Style At Home", making it easy to combine the

things we love that we formerly were taught don't always "go" together. In five chapters, she not only shows us every corner and vignette of her store (now expanded to three stores!) but her home as well, to give us ideas and permission to combine un-like styles!

Chapters include: Layers and Backdrops, Setting Still Lifes, Fabric Moods, Walls and Pictures and Romancing The Home,
each with plenty of color photos and tips on displaying our cherished treasures. It's definitely a "more is more" concept that keeps the eye flowing through a room!
As she states, "When someone visits a room I've had anything to do with, it usually takes a while to drink in the whole scene." You'll find yourself examining each photo for things you can try in your own home. (Make sure you see how she cleverly displays things in spaces you didn't know you had!)

In the back of the book is a further education on her Golden Rules of decorating and the use of each room in your home, 10 items that she has multiple uses for, and lists of even more tips on accessories, layering, quick changes and
seven decorating myths to happily ignore!
Who would like this book? Someone who can see the beauty in a huge gold framed mirror just as easily as the beauty of a white paint-chipped armoire. Someone who wants to be freed of having to choose sides when it comes to cottage, French, rustic and all the other styles we collect as we go through different stages in our lives! Someone who loves it all and wants to be surrounded by it!



This book will open the eyes, take the hand and whisper "welcome home" in the ears of everyone who has collections of unique items.
Nell Hill's Style At Home
Andrews McMeel Publishing, Kansas City
ISBN: 0-7407-1874-6
Hardback $27.95 USA

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