Good Design Can Change Your Life: Beautiful Rooms, Inspiring Stories

• The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel (Oprah Book Club #62)
• Ty Pennington At Home, Special 2008 Issue
• Ty's Tricks
• Thom Filicia Style: Inspired Ideas for Creating Rooms You'll Love
• Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World

Ty Pennington and the millions of people who watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition know that you can not only transform a home in seven days, you can transform someone's life. If he could, Ty would renovate every home in America, but even he doesn't have that much energy! So he's written Good Design Can Change Your Life: Beautiful Rooms, Inspiring Stories and filled the book with proof that you don't need a bulldozer and a million bucks to realize your dreams.

Focusing on the three most important parts of your home -- sleeping spaces, living spaces, and working spaces -- Ty offers low-cost, high-impact ideas for every budget. You'll learn how to express your personality and your passions in your design and how to get the most out of small spaces and limited time. Whether you want to create a welcoming living room that helps you connect with friends and family, a restful bedroom that lets you face the day energized and optimistic, or a streamlined home office that keeps you productive, Ty has some great ideas to share. From the elegant to the funky, the whimsical to the restful; from walls, floors, and lighting to storage, wallpaper, and fabric -- it's all here, infused with Ty's vitality and great style, along with the emotional stories of the people who changed his life as much as the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition crew changed theirs.

I now have a lot more inspiration and confidence for creating new rooms. It really showed me the guidelines to creating a masterpiece room. This book was phenomenal. I now have now have a lot of good ideas for designing my new bedroom. Thanks Ty. I even asked my Mom if I could fix some other rooms in our home.

This is a fun book, easy read with lots of good ideas and stories that tell it all. Wonderful gift idea for Christmas or anytime. I bought it for my daughter who is teaching her kids decorating techniques and design concepts so this will be read by more than one person in their household.

Loved this book. Gave me a lot of great ideas and made me think there's hope for my house after all.

Some of the ideas in this book are really simple and easy. This is a nice book. The photos and the stories about Extreme Makeover Home Edition are really great, and the information Ty gives is fresh. But the best thing by far is the hilarious quiz. Ty is right--sometimes all it takes is changing a room to give everything a fresh perspective.

In Prep Work, he has a quiz to take to discover your style. (Another terrific design book that also discusses the importance of energy flowing is the award winning book, HARMONIOUS ENVIRONMENT: BEAUTIFY, DETOXIFY & ENERGIZE YOUR LIFE, YOUR HOME & YOUR PLANET. As a designer, I read all the new home decorating books, and I really enjoyed this.Ty Pennington, the host of Extreme Makeovers, shares his talent and enthusiasm for makeovers and design in Good Design Can Change Your Life: Beautiful Rooms, Inspiring Stories. Read these together and see some magic happen).He also writes about accessorizing.Part IV Working SpacesHe impresses the importance of having a clean and simple office.In the appendix, he includes projects for reader to make, including a stacked bench, shade lamp and a cool shelf.If you need to be inspired to makeover your home or part of it, this book will do it. He is also adamant about decorating to suit your own sense of style.Good Design concentrates on the bedroom, living spaces and work spaces.Part IThe 12 steps to take to prepare for a makeover include smart ideas like taking before photos of the space. He says in Feng Shui the flow of energy is importance, but his flow is that furniture should be positioned so that people have plenty of space to walk around. Part II Sleeping SpacesIncludes a section on art as a focal point, rooms with high contrast, the importance of lighting, and natural features.About recycling, Pennington writes that he employs "Reincarnation," which is "giving something that you might otherwise throw out or give away a completely new life." One example he shows takes posts from a front porch and using them for the posts for twin beds.

This full color book is sure to inspire.In the introduction, Pennington writes of his heartwarming successes at making over homes on Extreme Makeovers for people in need: "The experience of creating warm, inviting sanctuaries for families who really need them has made me a true believer in the power of positive thinking." He believes that a makeover can transform your life. The styles include: minimalist, traditionalist, maximalist, ethnologist, naturalist, and "You're Me" (all of the above).There is a very good section on color and how it affects mood. Brilliant.There is also a nice section on kid's rooms.Part III Living SpacesPennington writes about the importance of the flow of traffic, especially for the entryway, which should always be inviting.