Elements of family style : elegant spaces for everyday life /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

New York Times bestselling author and popular lifestyle blogger Erin Gates shares everything you need to know about designing a beautifully stylish--yet practical and functional--family home through candid advice, inspirational ideas, and lessons learned.

Loved by her readers for her chic interior designs and frank and funny revelations about life behind the scenes of her picture-perfect blog, bestselling author and designer Erin Gates presents a new book about how to live stylishly amidst the chaos of daily family life. Throughout her career designing homes for families of all kinds all over the country, Erin has always maintained that living with children and pets does not mean that you have to forego nice things. This uniquely personal and practical guide will explain how to create a home that makes you proud and reflects your own style while also being durable, safe, and comfortable for children. It focuses on the spaces families share, those that are dedicated to the kids, and the oft-forgotten retreats for parents.

Erin combines honest design advice and gorgeous inspirational photographs with engaging and intimate personal essays about life lessons learned the hard way while struggling with infertility and becoming a mother, managing a business, overseeing her own home renovation, and finding time for her marriage. She'll share how to store toys so that shared spaces don't look like a kindergarten, the expensive-looking fabrics that will stand up to a marauding toddler with sticky hands, nursery looks that go beyond blue and pink, and furniture that does not have to be stored during the baby-proofing years. She also showcases the work of other designers she loves who surround parents, children, and their pets with comfort and beauty. Like a best friend who has a knack for style and a taste for fun, Erin opens her front door and invites you into her life and all of its beautiful imperfection.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Interior designer Gates offers a helpful guide to creating living spaces for families that balance child management with elegance. Her concept of home family design incorporates special spaces for kids as well as kid-free zones for exhausted parents. She opens on a personal note, by describing her struggles with infertility and the pain she felt at the possibility of going through life without children. When at last she gave birth to a baby boy, she recalls, a whole new landscape of design ideas opened up for her, the results of which are captured in this beautifully produced volume. It's divided into "zones"-Family Spaces, Kid Spaces, and Parent Retreats-which are then broken up further into specific rooms: from the nursery to the mudroom; from the master suite to the den. For Family Space, for example, Gates adds highly functional elements such as durable upholstery and high-traffic rugs, while the Parent Retreat space includes tips for choosing "statement art," arranging a "butler's pantry/bar area," and creating an elegant dining table. Her in-depth manual to planning for every corner of the home-which admittedly does assume a healthy budget-integrates utility, functionality, and style, while addressing the day-to-day needs of families. Agent: Brettne Bloom, the Book Group. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

This, quite simply, is a keeper. With tons of great captioned color photographs, Gates (Elements of Style, 2014) goes room by room in search of the best home-decorating solutions for families. In a very personal narrative, Gates delves into her own life and explains how, exactly, "chic" and Lego storage can coexist. Plus, sidebars impart way more information than can be found in an average coffee-table decorating book (which this is definitely not). Some examples: What are the best white paints (in color and durability)? What are the best pieces to splurge on, versus save on? (One example: splurge on the coffee table; save on accent tables.) How about the 20 best neutral paint colors? And, how to mix and match bed frames, nightstands, and dressers in the master suite? Designer colleagues answer questions like, What outdated advice do you wish people would stop listening to? One answer: stop telling people to get inexpensive furniture that the kids can mess up, and then get nicer furniture when they are old enough. Yes, a great practical reference for all, not just families. Includes a design-resource guide.--Barbara Jacobs Copyright 2019 Booklist

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Erin T. Gates is an interior designer, blogger, and author of the New York Times bestseller Elements of Style: Designing a Home and a Life . She has been featured in publications such as O, The Oprah Magazine , Redbook , Better Homes & Gardens , Elle Décor, Canadian House & Home, the Boston Globe , and The Wall Street Journal . She lives outside Boston with her husband and son.