Product Description

"Perfect English Cottage" explores 18 inspirational homes that celebrate the best of cottage style in the English countryside. The book looks at the decorating and design solutions that make the cottages as attractive inside as out, as well as practical and comfortable to live in. Bestselling author Ros Byam Shaw takes a fresh look at this perennially appealing style, which she divides into five chapters: Character, Holiday, Romance, Simplicity and Elegance. The featured homes are incredibly varied, from a tiny house with exposed beams to a pared-down Georgian gem, to a picture-perfect cottage with roses over the door-and plenty more adorning the interior. Each section ends with a Get The Look page with ideas for recreating the style in your own home.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3846 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

It's just the best!
This book is fantastic! Like the other reviewer I thought the author, Ros Byam-Shaw, had reached the top in 'Perfect English' but this book is just as good. Each of the homes it features are superb, comfortable, homely, places you'll really want to spend time in. This is not a book for minimalists, or people who like contemporary homes. It shows how older, unique items, can be put together to make a delightful living collage of treasured items. You won't find anything designer here, no matching or toning touches, not even perfection. Many things do show the wear and tear accumulated by time. And it's all the better for that.

This book shows creative homes, where each item is valued for the story it tells as well as it's function. You can read the patina on ancient furniture, you can see elderly, mis-matching crockery and see the passion the owner has for it or gaze at the pictures on the wall and imagine you were talking to their creator. Each item shows a facet of their owner's life, a living manifestation of individuality and all the more interesting for that.

It's also the perfect role model of recycling, many of the items are not quite perfect, but the author shows us how this really doesn't matter in the creation of individual style. I just hope the author is working on more books!

an english pearl
i thought that with her "perfect english", ros byam shaw had reached the top, the perfection about interior decoration books, but i see that it has now a twin brother in this "perfect english cottage". beautifully written and with gorgeous photos of flawless (perhaps because they do have some flaws) interiors, this book is about the highest esthetical values. byam shaw is a genius, she's simply the best.