Christmas At Designers Homes Across America

Almost 400 color images treat readers to dazzling holiday visions that leading designers have realized in their own homes--scenes usually reserved for family and friends. Be inspired by their decorating strategies and hands-on ingenuity while gleaning insider tips for preserving trees--both fresh and artificial--and caring for ornaments. Get the scoop on unusual color schemes and centerpieces. See how one designer used crushed red and silver ball ornaments as a light-catching base for glass vials of flowers, and a laundry-room tree whimsically decorated with miniature clothing-item ornaments. This treasure trove showcases one-of-a-kind holiday ideas from some of the nation's most talented interior designers, who share not only their aesthetic tastes but also family holiday rituals and favorite Christmas traditions.

A newly updated second edition of this popular anthology showcases how prominent interior designers decorate their own spaces for Christmas, providing plenty of festive inspiration.

A home of one’s own has always been a cornerstone of the American dream, fulfilling like nothing else the desire for comfort, financial security, independence, and with a little luck, even a touch of distinctive character, or even beauty. But what we have come to regard as almost a national birthright has recently begun to elude more and more prospective homebuyers. Where housing is concerned, affordable and well-crafted rarely exist together. Or do they? For years, founding editor-in-chief of Dwell magazine and noted architecture and design critic Karrie Jacobs had been confronting this question both professionally and personally. Finally, she decided to see for herself whether it was possible to build the home of her own dreams for a reasonable sum. The Perfect $100,000 House is the story of that quest, a search that takes her from a two-week crash course in housebuilding in Vermont to a road trip of some 14,000 miles. In the course of her journey Jacobs encounters a group of intrepid and visionary architects and builders working to revolutionize the way Americans thinks about homes, about construction techniques, and about the very idea of community. By her trip’s end Jacobs, has not only had a practical and sobering education in the economics, aesthetics, and politics of homebuilding, but has been spurred to challenge her own deeply held beliefs about what constitutes an ideal home. The Perfect $100,000 House is a compelling and inspiring demonstration that we can live in homes that are sensible, modest, and beautiful.

Presents a tour of the author's three homes--a pre-war Manhattan duplex, a Colonial-era Connecticut stone house, and an Aspen residence--in order to show how to make the most of architectural features and interior furnishings.

"What would Christmas be without lights, color, greenery, and glitter? Join leading professional designers on a tour of well-appointed private residences dressed in their festive best. The one-of-a-kind decorating schemes are a study in the art of using scale, shape, and color to play up the house's best features and create a look that's pulled together. Here are fresh design ideas for indoor and outdoor scenes, whether it's a glamorous staircase, pristine tree, perfectly wrapped piles of presents, or a simple, well-placed evergreen wreath. Representing a range of geographic locations and decorating philosophies, the designers share their tips, tricks, and traditions for celebrating the season in style, and in every room of the house."--Publisher's website.

History is brought to life in many historic houses, especially at Christmas time, when special decorations help to welcome the social season and visiting guests. In this revised second edition, learn history and local customs through engaging text and over 420 color photos. Costumed guides interpret Christmas traditions in some of the thirty specially decorated houses that are featured from across America. Both magnificent estates and simple residences offer a variety of styles, tastes, and ideas to inspire your own celebrations. See preserved buildings with illuminated gardens, inviting dining halls, and stunning interiors. Enjoy the many efforts on display here that help to make the Christmas season a magical time of sharing, caring, and gratitude.

The first book to focus on the solo residential work of the visionary interior decorator Stephen Sills. Simultaneously classical and modern, Stephen Sills’s design work is a dialogue between past and present. Filled with luxurious fabrics, furnishings from across centuries, and unusual finishes, his work is polished, seemingly effortless, and quietly rich, with a muted color palette that serves as a brilliant foil for modern art. In this striking, meditative volume, the follow-up to his best-selling book Dwellings, Sills presents sixteen breathtaking homes, gorgeously photographed by the legendary François Halard, in locations as varied as a penthouse on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, a modern Aspen retreat, an estate on the North Shore of Long Island, and his own country house in Bedford, New York (dubbed the "chicest house in America" by Karl Lagerfeld). Common to them all is a sense of atmosphere, point of view, and soul—the sense of a master craftsman at work.

It's time for America to move beyond zoning, argues city planner M. Nolan Gray in Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It. With lively explanations, Gray shows why zoning abolition is a necessary--if not sufficient--condition for building more affordable, vibrant, equitable, and sustainable cities. Gray lays the groundwork for this ambitious cause by clearing up common misconceptions about how American cities regulate growth and examining four contemporary critiques of zoning (its role in increasing housing costs, restricting growth in our most productive cities, institutionalizing racial and economic segregation, and mandating sprawl). He sets out some of the efforts currently underway to reform zoning and charts how land-use regulation might work in the post-zoning American city. Arbitrary Lines is an invitation to rethink the rules that will continue to shape American life--where we may live or work, who we may encounter, how we may travel. If the task seems daunting, the good news is that we have nowhere to go but up