Garden Rooms: Nature-Inspired Decorating Indoors and Out

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Most people challenged to decorate a home crave ideas. They want to see
what others have done and draw inspirations from many sources. Garden
Rooms responds to that need. Featuring more than 100 color photos, it is
a gold mine of decorating ideas from Canada’s leading advisor to the
insecure—Chatelaine magazine.

This bright and cheerful book illustrates how the garden theme, loosely
interpreted, can be applied to the whole house, including porch and
deck. With few exceptions, however, the rooms shown give the impression
of being sets created for the photographer; they look cluttered and
impractical for everyday life.

The projects are of the type favored by neo-Victorians: preparing
potpourri, gluing leaves to picture frames, stencilling, sticking fringe
on lamp shades and tassels on cushions. Some of these projects are
impractical (such as tying bunches of wheat to the backs of chairs);
others are simply absurd (such as gluing dried pansies to Styrofoam
balls).

The minimal text serves only to provide a link between the photos and
the garden-based decorating theme. The numerous, vivid photos along with
the how-to directions for 50 do-it-yourself projects carry the work.

Garden Rooms offers some interesting browsing for amateur decorators
who have the discretion to take what will work for them and leave the
nonsense.