Living Details: more than 500 ways to make a house of apartment a home

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

There are lots of ideas here in this co-published work — ideas on how to make a house more livable for a modest price, while saving for that really big purchase later in life. The material in this book is really meant for that first “home” or apartment. The topics cover cramped quarters, sparse storage, security, walls and floors, windows and lighting, decorative touches, and the kitchen and bathroom areas. (Cowan previously produced Beyond the Bath and Beyond the Kitchen, both interior decoration books meant for those specific areas.) Each section has good, colorful photographs loaded with ideas, and there are also photo essays from 21 actual houses, demonstrating design solutions.

The source lists include subject-arranged groupings of addresses for the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom (for example, from Toronto there are the Art Shoppe, DeBoers, and Waddingtons). Overall, the materials used for interior decoration are pretty expensive (I can’t afford them myself). Maybe a little bit goes a long way.