Celerie Kemble: To Your Taste: Creating Modern Rooms with a Traditional Twist | 
 enlarge | Author: Celerie Kemble
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Category: Book
List Price: $45.00
Buy New: $27.49
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 7797
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.5
Dimensions (in): 11.1 x 8.9 x 1.3
ISBN: 0307394425
Dewey Decimal Number: 747
EAN: 9780307394422
ASIN: 0307394425
Publication Date: November 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
Celebrate what’s beautiful about traditional style while breaking some of its rules: Take a page out of a designer’s book and add your own sense of relaxed whimsy and exuberant personality to create spaces that are versatile, original, and truly livable.
That’s designer Celerie Kemble’s philosophy in a nutshell. It’s all about blending a classic sensibility with a dose of irreverence and a dollop of humor to achieve a home that’s tasteful, eclectic, always evolving, and always welcoming.
Celerie takes you by the hand, gives you a detailed look at many of her signature interiors, and enthusiastically reassures you that, with the right information and attitude, you can overcome challenges and artfully achieve the ultimate design goal—a perfect blend of beauty and comfort.
From finding inspiration in childhood memories, current trends, and favorite belongings to working around real-life design dilemmas (such as a lack of space or light, or awkward floor plans) to selecting just the right furnishings (including rugs, lamps, and accessories), Celerie Kemble: To Your Taste infectiously proves that when making a beautiful home, the process is the best part.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
Readable, relatable, practical January 3, 2009
Maggie Dillier (Dallas, TX USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Class bias ("Look to your parents' decorating style" - what, TV trays and laminate furniture?) notwithstanding, Celerie Kemble has written an eminently readable, relatable, and practical guide to beautiful design. From the general - create an interesting conversation between the pieces in a room - to the specific - side tables should be 2 inches below arm height - Kemble educates us and inspires us in equal parts. She's provided a guide to great rooms that helps a novice visually dissect the elements. I know what I like, but now I know how to recreate what I like in my own home. This book is a gem and a keeper for reference forever.
Interior design advice that is practical, thoughtful and fun December 17, 2008
John Mcginn
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Based on the recommendation of a friend in the interior design industry, we bought this book for some practical advice as we prepare to redo our NYC apartment. We have found it to be the most enjoyable and practical home design books we've ever run across. "To Your Taste" is filled with gorgeous photos and sound advice. (The book itself is so good-looking that it could the first step towards a newly-redesigned living room or library as a prominent book on your coffee table!) Ms. Kemble presents an approach towards interior design that is relaxed, personal, unpretentious, and fun. Enjoy!
How to Get A Magazine Life December 17, 2008
Valorie Hart (The City That Care Forgot)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
"Trying to clean up after a dismal 2 A.M. flight ordeal with my fourteen-month-old son, I hastily drew a lukewarm bath in the tiny tub of our grim motel room. As I lay shivering in eight inches of water, squinting to block out the fluorescent lighting, and holding my sick, travel weary baby, I was blinded by a sudden flash, and then heard laughter. My husband had snapped a picture of the two of us mid-soak, our flesh pale and shriveled against the margarine-colored plastic tub and shower curtain. He threatened to send the image to the editors at Harper's Bazaar, who had just published a particularly flattering photo spread that had me blushing with excitement when I saw it at the airport. In the magazine's photo (taken by their skilled photographer, my appearance carefully styled by a hair and makeup team), my son and I were luxuriating in a marble tub, garlanded with holiday greenery and illuminated with warm, subtle, radiant lighting. My husband thought Harper's Bazaar should run his motel snapshot alongside its glossy images under the respective headlines Magazine Life and Real Life." excerpt from To Your Taste by Celerie Kemble.
Indeed Celerie Kemble has the Magazine Life we all dream of, and it is very well documented in the society pages, as well as in fashion and shelter magazines.
Celerie isn't her real name, of course: Cecilia Lacoste Kemble was raised in a prominent blue-blood family in Palm Beach, the daughter of an investment manager and noted Palm Beach interior designer Mimi Maddock McMakin. Born into this good Palm Beach family of means, she had a full and happy childhood, surrounded by beautiful people and beautiful things. Her motther Mimi McMakin started the Palm Beach firm Kemble Interiors, of which Celerie oversees its New York branch.
Celerie is gorgeous. She married a gorgeous (and apparently funny) man, a banker named Boykin Curry (also from a good family) and they have a toddler son Rascal (Ravenel Boykin Curry V), and a baby daughter Zinnia (Lacoste Kemble-Curry). Their dog is named Anchovie. It's like something out of a magazine!
She is also very talented, both as an interior designer, and as a writer.
This, her first book is large and glossy, and packed with loads of good decorating advice that considers how one lives, how one's taste changes and evolves over a lifetime, how a room can tell a story, etc. etc.
It's good stuff, though it has a certain unreality about it, a Real Life philosophy with Magazine Life results. Even the suggestion to match the color of your baby stroller to the front hallway if that's where it has to live, or matching the couch to the dog so dog hair shows less, has a certain kooky practicality that most people in real life would never dream of doing.
Celerie is one of a cadre of current decorators who make pretty rooms. They design like fashion designers. They know how to mix it up, from the expensive pair of Manolos to the thrift store dress. I like this way of designing. It can be very Real Life with Magazine Life results. This populist point of view is mostly what the magazines are publishing these days.
A person like Celerie to the manner born, with tons of advantages and connections seems to be a no brainer for getting a book published. However, at the end of the day, it is she Celerie, who has to deliver the goods. And so she does. Would she be so good if she were self taught and from the poorer working class side of the tracks? Probably so. There is a great tradition of society women turning into businesswomen decorators. And so it goes with Celerie. I wonder if it's a different kind of burden to live up to the expectations of a quirky name and one's social position.
This is a good book for the person who collects design books. It's a good book for a design student. It's a good book for society page readers. It's a good book to read, and to take a little trip to Magazine Life.
I recommend it whole heartedly.
I Loved This Book! December 2, 2008
Skinnier B (London)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this book, not only for the great pictures and ideas, but text is really funny.
It sounds like Celerie is talking right to me and there are so many rooms to look at - many very different styles, so all kinds of inspiration and advice about practical issues.
My favorite was about hiding TV's because a few methods I hadn't seen before! Also, there are sections on pets and kids with pretty good advice. I can't believe one of her clients bought a sofa to match her dogs hair color but hey- looks like celerie has all sorts of different clients (and I like some spaces a lot more than others), but that flexibility is probably what makes her a good decorator and source for ideas!
Definitely buy this book!!!
To Your Taste November 13, 2008
Lauren G. Muse (Greenwich, CT)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
This design book is not only extremely inspirational to look at but it is also a really good read. It is very well written; Celerie gives up a lot of inside designer scoop. The reader gets a peek inside her personality, which is very engaging and honest. I think she is going to be one of the great interior designers of this generation.
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