Made for Living: Collected Interiors for All Sorts of Styles

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She seems to be showcasing a few specific houses that she decorated, but they all look alike. The pictures could come from any one of them. If you learn anything at all from this book I feel like I succeeded in what I set out to do . . . which is to be a source of inspiration for you and your home."

Made for Living - Google Books

As stunning as it is, the style seems out of touch with the reality of most readers and a bit repetitive (huge homes, many shades of pale neutrals, reclaimed woods, lots of layers of casual-luxe materials, vintage items and rugs, even in wet zones where proper hygiene and maintenance would be impossible,...). Self-promotion of Amber´s own business can also feel excessive at times. She looks for the perfect vintage object for the space; she does lots and lots of shopping. Do the clients bring nothing to the project but the space itself and the funds for her to decorate it? She seldom mentions working with the client. Apparently she does it all. Layer things. Layer layer layer. How do you know what to layer? Just put things on top of each other and if it looks right, that's what you should layer. By publishing your document, the content will be optimally indexed by Google via AI and sorted into the right category for over 500 million ePaper readers on YUMPU. It was not exactly smooth sailing to get to where I am now. The seed for what is now Amber Interiors was planted the day I got fired from that assistant job. Around the same time, my daughter, Gwyneth, was born, and my husband’s career as a touring musician was coming to an end. We’d just bought our first house, in LA, and I decided to start a blog documenting our home renovation and DIY projects. Soon I had plunged full steam ahead into my own interior design business.

Designing a room with all the vibes comes down to how you layer your décor. The more you can mix the elements of your room—your pillows, objects, patterns, and lighting—the more finished it’ll not too new, not too old, but just right.

Made for Living | Penguin Random House Retail Made for Living | Penguin Random House Retail

I took this book out of my library 100% due to the title. The title is misleading. Everything seemed one style. Solid white walls, wood floors, and lots of uncomfortable looking furniture. None of the homes looked anywhere near made for living. There was no sign of life in any of the photos (except for a dog, one room with what looked like artwork of an actual human, and one room that had a bowl of fruit). Author discusses her decorating philosophy. Starting with paint. White paint. Lots of white paint variations. White paint, maybe a discussion of how to watch white paint dry? Um...I’m unsure. This is where I slipped into a temporary coma for reading, and just flipped through the photos. Some of the most appealing rooms are her kitchens, baths, and mudrooms. These hard-working areas are beautiful as well. Yes, some of the large expanses of marble seem designed to impress, as are the reclaimed French limestone floors, but they are beautiful. The trendsetting designer known for her effortless style shares the secrets of the art of layering: arranging all your disparate things so that they work together.

The photos of the houses the author decorated were done in such a fashion that could not get the larger feel of the space. As I went through the book different furniture pieces would clue me in this was another angle of a room already shown in an earlier photograph. The break out of the contents is no help to organize the houses in one's mind. Livability is my true north. The materials I use time and again all change with age and wear. Not only is that okay, it’s how you achieve more than a re-creation of what you’ve already seen, or what somebody else has done. You can do this, too—I promise.”—from the introduction