A room in your home may seem not quite right. Do you change the whole decor with a project that involves considerable time and expense? Or is there a small but elegant alteration that you can make to give the room a new look, a lift? Elizabeth Gaynor and Kari Haavisto have tapped the minds of designers, architects, stylists, art directors, and others with a sophisticated eye for successful decorating to give insights on infusing new life to existing design elements with small but substantive transformations. Let's face it: We all come with baggage. Very few of us can afford to throw away all our belongings and wipe our decorative slates clean. Rather, we need good ideas to help us use what we have. Stylish Solutions is a book of such ideas. The homes included are clearly lived in, and the solutions that work here can be made to fit every home, large or small. Specific problems--such as where to place a sofa, how to arrange objects on a coffee table, and what to do to make the most of your mantel or bookshelves--yield a host of conceptual solutions that can be applied to any situation. Take a classic Biedermeier sofa, for example, then freshen it by pairing it with a modern elliptical table. Drape fabric over a pressed-wood table for a quick, smart sideboard. You'll soon appreciate how various decorative elements come together to add drama to a room and learn to employ these simple ideas to improve the spaces in which you live. Stylish Solutions presents hundreds of easy decorating ideas for cupboards, countertops, coffee tables, and more--ideas that help make big changes with little effort. Have you ever said, "If only I could find the perfect ____ for this space"? Stylish Solutions , a little book of clean, Scandinavian-inspired design, focuses on six different types of furniture that can make the difference between a room that's bland and one that's quietly (never flashily) inspired. These are the workhorses of the home: coffee table, sideboard or cupboard, sofa, bookcase, mantel, and bed. And once you have the right piece for the space, this book will help you figure out the right placement and arrangement for that piece and the ones that surround it. The living spaces shown are solid, sometimes idiosyncratic, always interesting, and definitely workable for people with real lives and less-than-perfect homes. --Barrie Trinkle ur home may seem not quite right. Do you change the whole decor with a project that involves considerable time and expense? Or is there a small but elegant alteration that you can make to give the room a new look, a lift? Elizabeth Gaynor and Kari Haavisto have tapped the minds of designers, architects, stylists, art directors, and others with a sophisticated eye for successful decorating to give insights on infusing new life to existing design elements with small but substantive transformations. Let's face it: We all come with baggage. Very few of us can afford to throw away all our belongings and wipe our decorative slates clean. Rather, we need good ideas to help us use what we have. Stylish Solutions is a book of such ideas. The homes included are clearly lived in, and the solutions that work here can be made to fit every home, large or small. Specific problems--such as where to place a sofa, how to arrange objects on a coffee table, and what to do to make the most of you "Successful design always solves problems--with function, aesthetics, and a bit of serendipity. The goal of this book is to present these problems in succinct visual bites, in targeted areas of rooms. Problems like where to place a sofa, how to arrange things on a coffee table, what to make of a bed. There isn't one right answer. There are many, not only because of the range in physical variables and practical needs, but because there is infinite variety in what is attainable, acceptable, and fashionable in interiors today. This is a book of alternatives, a broad showcase of stylish solutions." --From the Introduction Elizabeth Gaynor is a writer and editor specializing in design. She is lifestyle editor of Parade and a regular contributor to American Homestyle and Gardening. Her work has appeared in such magazines as World of Interiors, Country Living, Architectural Digest, Home, House Beautiful, and Traditional Home. She has lectured on design at the New York School of Interior Design and the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts. She is the author of several award-winning books on design, including Finland: Living Design, Scandinavia: Living Design, and Russian Houses. Kari Haavisto is a prize-winning photographer of architecture and interiors whose work has been featured in House Beautiful, Home, Architectural Digest, World of Interiors, Country Living, and Town and Country. This is his fourth book produced in tandem with Elizabeth Gaynor