Christopher Lowell's One-Of-A-Kind Decorating Projects: Fast & Flexible Ways to Personalize Your Home

Television personality and interior decorator Lowell (Seven Layers of Organization) tamps down his typical over-the-top style in this collection of projects readers can use to create functional, contemporary rooms on a budget. Focusing on four decorating themes (town, country, city and shore), Lowell decorates a room from top to bottom and shows readers, in the process, how each piece in the room is constructed or repurposed. In some cases he opts for new furniture, while in others he takes existing items and imbues them with new life, as in the crackle paint finish he applies to an old chest of drawers. Lowell's instructions are clear and easy to follow, and he offers plenty of encouragement along the way. Most designs are simple and sharp, but the exceptions are substantial: his ""super simple lamp shade,"" in which textured yarn is vertically wrapped around a lamp shade, looks more like an insect infestation than an elegant light source; further, his use of sand dollars to create wall art is amazingly tacky. Fans of Lowell and those with a hot glue gun they're itching to break in will find a number of practical, cost-effective ideas that fall well within the capabilities of most do-it-yourselfers.