Warmer weather’s here, the sun’s out and so are a number of new books on interior/exterior design and collecting.
These selections offer direction or delight, whether your warm-weather pursuits include redecorating or just reading.
Just a little coaching
Here’s a practical series for homeowners. “How-to” is made easier with Chronicle Books’ “Do It” series. These mini-books ($9.95 each), which offer detailed, illustrated home-repair instructions, fit easily into pockets for on-the-job use. Each book measures about 6 inches long and 3 inches wide, with pages attached at one corner with a plastic, black screw, creating a fan effect.
The eight-book series, all titled, “Do It,” have subtitles ranging from “Essential Car Care” to “Quick Bike Repairs.”
“Everyday Home Repairs” covers 35 of the most common headaches, ranging from installing new drywall to refinishing a dull hardwood floor.
“Fix Your Plumbing” tells you how to repair 50 of the most common plumbing problems, from replacing leaky faucets to stopping overflowing toilets to quieting banging pipes.
“Efficent Housecleaning” contains tips and tactics for cleaning windows, furniture and floors. It also has suggestions on the best tools and cleaning products.
“Household Emergencies” tells how to deal with everything from an invasion of bats to downed power lines.
What can you lose? The “Do It” series helps empower homeowners who want to turn maintenance projects into simpler undertakings.
A bit of advice
Must-haves for the savvy garage sale and flea market enthusiast on the hunt for everyday objects that may become the antiques of the 21st Century, are two paperbacks authored by Anne Gilbert, the Miami Herald’s antiques columnist.
Both of the books are published by Avon Books in its Confident Collector Series. They cost $12.50 each.
” ’40s and ’50s Designs & Memorabilia Identification and Price Guide: All the Unique Creations from the End of the War Through the Birth of the Baby Boomers,” is a comprehensive guide.
It gets high marks for its clear identification of hundreds of items, ranging from kitschy to classy, including collectible furniture, American ceramics, clocks, flatware, glass, jewelry and even plastic pink flamingos (Gilbert lists the going rate for these as $50).
Excellent photos are accompanied by an informative text, in which Gilbert educates readers on how to recognize collectibles from these decades. Some chapters are written by creative forces from those decades, some of whom continue to influence design in the 1990s, such as textile designers Jack Lenor Larsen and Chicago’s own Ben Rose.
Gilbert’s price guide offers more than skeletal descriptions of collectibles and prices. She informs the reader about what brought about design changes and identifies the important designers and craftsmen.
She says 1940s and 1950s collectibles still are available because collectors and museums have yet to devote much attention to the period.
In addition, some of the objects, because of the materials they are made from and the fact that they were mass-produced, were inexpensive then and still are.
Don’t leave home without this one.
The next generation
” ’60s and ’70s Designs and Memorabilia, Identification and Price Guide, All the Funk and Fun From the Age of Aquarius to the `Me Generation,’ ” is the other book by Gilbert.
Again, Gilbert gives the design background of this era. Those two decades were a time of passion and protest and dramatic changes that influenced every aspect of design, including fashions, furniture and home decor. The generation that changed America forever with sit-ins and love-ins, and gave us pop, rock and punk, is remembered by hundreds of items, from Kennedy collectibles to Barbie dolls to “smiley” faces. The photos make you smile as you recognize the hanging globe chair designed by Eero Aarnio or Peter Max’s sunglasses that came in a carrying case decorated with the artist’s cartoonlike designs.
Good direction is given as to what’s probably going to be valuable in the future, such as coffee makers, clock radios, early digital phones and Scandinavian silver tableware.
There is useful glossary on plastic trademarks and a source guide for shows, dealers and museum collections.
Tips for tight spaces
“Making the Most of Small Spaces” by Anoop Parikh (Rizzoli, $18.95) provides answers and inspiration for anyone living in small spaces.
Myriad ways to transform the compact into the cozy have been gathered between the covers of this book by an interior designer who was Cosmopolitan magazine’s decorating editor for several years.
The challenge of one-room living is given an entire chapter. Fitting a wide range of activities into one small room is possible, but one has to have imagination and use space efficiently, says the author. Two main approaches are offered. The first is to keep the room as open as possible, with a minimum amount of furniture arranged around the edges of the room. An alternative is to divide the space into areas of activity, using screening, decorative materials and changes in floor level.
Well-planned storage is a major issue in a small space and is a predictable subtheme in this book. This part of the book is planned like the layout of a small room-lots of photos of storage tricks and a short text of suggestions that make this an easy reference to move around in.
Ideas range from hidden storage (using a large Venetian blind to hide a foldaway bed in an alcove during the day) to different ways to openly display favorite items in built-in wall units.
Folding screens are a favorite device to divide and conquer for this author, and she gives workable suggestions on how to use them.
An example: screens, whether movable or fixed, should stop well short of the ceiling so that daylight can reach every corner of the room and prevent a feeling of claustrophobia. She also tells how to make your own screens out of medium-density fiberboard, joining the panels with screen hinges, then decorating with paint, paper or fabric.
Even those who live in large houses but want to better organize cluttered rooms may find it profitable to peruse the hundreds of space-saving ideas in these pages.
Fascinating balls of glass
“Aggies, Immies, Shooters, and Swirls, the Magical World of Marbles” by Marilyn Barrett (Bulfinch Press Book, $19.95) is a lavishly illustrated introduction to the marbles, fascinating objects that have beguiled mankind since Tutankhamen’s time.
The sparkling, round, colored glass ball you hold in your fingers is a descendant of the stone and clay balls used for games and found in the pyramid tombs of Egyptian kings.
But this book is not only as a nostalgic look at a favorite childhood game; it’s an indispensable guide for treasure hunters who want to knuckle down to collecting in a serious way.
The book lists marble auctions, clubs, societies and associations.
Marbles are becoming one of today’s hottest collectibles. Yet, while some marbles are now worth hundreds and even thousands of dollars, the author says the real excitement is that others still can be found by the box at flea markets, garage sales and junk stores.
“Aggies (marbles made of agate), Immies (glass marbles with streaks of colors), Shooters (larger than average marbles, usually of agate), and Swirls (marbles with ribbon twists or spirals inside),” is one of the first popular picture book on marbles. It will prove enchanting to marble players, dealers, collectors and fans new and old, as well as Americana buffs and anyone delighted by the appeal of these glass creations.
