Wanna decorate?

People love decorating ideas, and there's about as many styles and tastes out there as you could possible imagine. Two of our newest decorating idea books are geared towards the 20-40 year old crowd, with a fair amount of kitschy artistic taste thrown in.
If you've ever seen the magazine domino (and if you haven't, don't worry - we'll soon be getting a trial subscription), then you know that the pages are full of ideas on paint schemes, furniture combinations, and soft furnishings. It's all about evoking a mood and making a statement, often with pieces that look like you picked them up at upscale thrift shops. domino, the Book of Decorating: a room-by-room guide to creating a home that makes you happy continues in this vein. The combinations, suggestions and hints from editors Deborah Needleman, Sara Ruffin Costello and Dara Caponigro are sure to appeal to hip young urbanites (or urbanite wanna-be). Very colorful, very eclectic, very bold...I'm showing my age when I say that a lot of the pictures look too visually cluttered and downright tacky, but if I was 25 I would be totally inspired.
Apartment Therapy is a blog whose online community shares what they have done with their tiny cramped apartments. Through these House Tours, others are motivated to be all they can be...don't just settle for white walls and hand-me-down furniture! Three years worth of these House Tours have been compiled in Apartment Therapy presents: real homes, real people, hundreds of real design solutions. Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan introduces you to these self-made decorators (just like you!) who have managed to imprint their personality on spaces that can be astoundingly small. This book is all about modern, urban design in a variety of living situations. There's a nice listing in the back that breaks all these tours down by geographic region, apartment vs. home, and size. Whether it's a 265 sq. ft. apartment for a family of three - holy cow! - or an 1,800 sq. ft. Victorian home, you can get plenty of ideas for your own space. These dwellers give you their inspiration, their DIY, biggest indulgence and best advice. Even if you're not planning on decorating your own space, this is still a fun book to page through.