From Bleak to Beautiful

An Interior Design Beginner’s Guide to Identify Your Style and Transform Your Living Space

By: Virginia Scidmore

Narrated by: Megan Meyer

Length: 3 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

Are you tired of looking at the same four boring walls and wondering if this really is…it?

In 2020, 70 percent of Americans were planning to redecorate their homes as a result of feeling uncomfortable or unhappy with their living space during lockdown.

Your home should be your sanctuary, your happy place! But unfortunately for many, it just presents a whole host of problems and issues that never seem to get sorted. Well, this is your sign to finally pick up that paintbrush and get the confidence to take a leap into creating a tailored space to suit your needs, and impress others, too!

You know that feeling when you check into a nice hotel and you can’t help but just sit and stare around the room for a while? It’s always the small details that pop and help you to feel relaxed and calm, even though you are in a new place. Now, what if you could replicate those feelings in your own home, but make it 10 times better? Get started today by learning the skills of interior design that will help you make the most of your personal style and create a fantastic, functional space that you’ll love.

In this guide, you will discover:

• Everything you need to know to get your perfect place to become a reality—regardless of previous experience!
• Interactive exercises to help you figure out what furniture you need to achieve your desired look
• Five ways you can use interior design to influence your mood—come home happy every day and enjoy an uplifting, peaceful home
• How to consciously purchase items, allowing you to save money and keep things that actually last!
• Ten popular design styles you can use for inspiration—don’t just assume things need to be kept simple; find your passion with bold colors and striking features
• How to pull in different textures and personal touches to really make it feel like your home
• Number-one secret to bringing together your design ideas that anyone should use when redecorating!
• And much more.

©2022 Virginia Scidmore (P)2022 Virginia Scidmore

Home Design Secrets Unlocked

Home is where the Heart Is. There is a certain sense of personal empowerment one gets when they have the knowledge and awareness to personalize their home space without thinking they need an interior designer. This audiobook is a key listen for those who are looking to transform their living space with a sense of joy. The audiobook encourages the listener to become acquainted with their living space, understand its purpose, and design accordingly. The audiobook fosters design creativity by encouraging the listener to focus on certain key points of interior design. A favorite chapter was "Prioritize Key Pieces".

The narration is clear and easy to comprehend with a wonderful warm tone. This audiobook would make a great gift for those who have just purchased a new home or those interested in the home design business.

Awesome!

I love interior design but I don’t always know how to transfer the image in my head to real life. This book gave me a lot of insights, ideas and was very eye opening.

Amazing Tips

After the lockdown in my city, I was at home too much and I wanted to change things in my house but didn't know where to start. This book gave me some awesome tips where I could see the changes I wanted in my head before looking at stuff!

Loved It!

I know I have tried several times to decorate my home but there's always a disconnect between what I envision and what I create. This book has helped me to see some of the things I have been doing wrong. I love that it is simple enough that anyone can follow and implement.

Just the thing we need before we remodel!

Spending so much time at home during the pandemic and living in the same house for over half a century, we've finally reached the point where we are looking to update our interior with better form and function . . . but we do not want to move! So we have saved up, and this book is just the thing we need before we take on a big remodel project.

Scidmore provides us with the basic ins and outs of interior design to make our imaginations a reality. Now we can get busy and create a stunning and comfortable home with no need to worry about making expensive mistakes.

This book has excellent inspiration to get us to grab a vision board and some graph paper, along with paintbrushes. We can create a more functional and updated space in which we can retire comfortably. Improving our home's ambiance will be a diversion and enhance our enjoyment as we choose to "age in place." This guide reminds us to shop wisely and to have possessions that are both economical and long-lasting.

We can hardly wait to design a space that fits our lifestyle and that our children and grandchildren will also adore coming on visits.

Excellent Beginner's Guide

This book is well written. I really enjoyed the conversational tone of it.
The author presents many ways to think about design, many of which had never occurred to me. I have never considered myself good at interior design, but this book helped me realize that I am actually on the right track for many things in my home. I was glad to read that it is okay to use the space for what works best for ME, it doesn’t matter what it was “designed for. I learned about how to prioritize projects, how to maximize space and ways to create storage. I also learned how to not waste money, great ways to keep things you might use later, and great ideas about how to avoid clutter.
I really enjoyed the in-depth discussion of colors, as well as the section about creating digital vision boards. The how-to is explained very clearly, using a variety of platforms.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I would recommend it to anyone who is considering changing up their space. No matter your budget, great ideas are presented here.

For beautiful and comfortable living space!

These days, we spend more time at home working, resting, and having fun with friends. So I always wanted to clean up and redesign my living space to make it more beautiful and functional at the same time. This book gives good ideas on how to design each space in your home, how to plan lighting and colors, and what kinds of furniture you can add. It also explains good feng shui practices you need to keep in mind by explaining how to arrange the pieces in living spaces to create balance with the natural world. I got many good ideas from this book, and I highly recommend this book to you as well!

I love this

I'm eager to alter my home and put all I've learnt into practice. I feel like I'm in a rut and simply don't like my home's decor at all, but I don't have any design expertise or experience, and I don't have a particular style, so this is precisely what I needed! I adored the current design fads and how I could affect my mood with my own creations. I can't wait to make these adjustments and watch my house transform into something lovely and well-designed. I'm grateful.

Gave me a lot of new ideas!

I love that it talks about how to design your space in a way that aligns with both your own style and budget. My own budget is at the lower end and this book helped me come up with a lot of new ideas.
I was suprised to learn how much of an effect different lightings and patterns have on the mood of a room.
Feeling good about your own home is so very important. Higly reccomend this book!

Such a great book!

Are you looking to design or redesign your living space? Does it seem like a daunting task and you don't know how to get started? Then this book is for you! It covers everything from popular design ideas you can use, how to decide on furniture purchases, how to create functional spaces in your home and so much more. Highly recommend for anyone looking to redecorate their home or change their space!