During the week, interior designers select fabulous fabrics, furniture, paint, lighting, and accessories for clients' homes. On the weekends, they can devote themselves to beautifying their own. Materials and finishes that later appear in commissioned work often appear here first, as designers use the rooms and walls of their primary and secondary residences like a blank canvas for perfecting details and techniques central to their trade. Thirty-eight private primary and vacation residences belonging to today's most renowned decorators from around the country inspire with full-color images of exquisitely appointed chic city apartments, elegant townhouses, minimalist midcentury gems, quaint cottages, historic mansions and farmhouses, cozy log cabins, and beachside retreats in locations ranging from Palm Desert to Palm Beach, Austin, Chicago, East Hampton, and Boston. Michele Keith's lively, accessible text brings each distinct personality to life, revealing how and why the designers gravitate to styles ranging from firmly traditional to coolly contemporary to Hollywood Regency, how the attributes of each location--setting, proportions, and character — influence design direction, and how designers including Martha Angus, Barclay Butera, Eric Cohler, Andrew Fisher and Jeffry Weisman, Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz, Eve Robinson, and Vicente Wolf choose to spend time in the intensely personal spaces they have created. Each designer's top five favorite decorating tips encourage all eager to perfect their own homes to begin.
