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Pad: The Guide to Ultra-Living | 
 enlarge | Authors: Matt Maranian, Jack Gould
Creator: Susan Tudor
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $2.00
You Save: $22.95 (92%)
New (8) Used (30) from $2.00
Rating:  66 reviews
Sales Rank: 410971
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 208
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 8.5 x 1
ISBN: 0811826538
Dewey Decimal Number: 645
EAN: 9780811826532
ASIN: 0811826538
Publication Date: May 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
You have a futon left over from college, some dingy end tables that Aunt Miller left you, and an apartment whose carpeting dates back to the Me Decade. The decorating magazines and TV shows never seem to talk to you. So what? With some attitude, know-how, and a lot of your own style, your place can be transformed into a fabulous Shangri-La, a swanky venue fit for living and entertaining well. Pad: The Guide to Ultra-Living is filled to bursting with hip, affordable projects for every room in the house and shows how to use basics like lighting, plants, mirrors, and paint to enhance even problem areas. Numerous testimonials from real people with real living spaces demonstrate how a little spaces demonstrate how a little spunk and individuality can overcome the limitations of the average urban dwelling. Offering a complete lifestyle package, Pad has instructions for building your own home bar, ideas for party themes and recipes--and even collateral hangover cures! This total living guide will have your place all spruced up--and the envy of guests--in no time.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 61 more reviews...
 Love it! June 5, 2008
Looeybee
This book had been my interior decorating go to for many years. But be forewarned, it will appeal to the more eccentric and artistic among us. If you are looking for funky and unique ways to decorate you house on a budget, then this is the book for you. If you want your house to look like a Pottery Barn catalogue, then this is not the book for you.
Crafts and Kitsch - What's Not to Love? May 21, 2008
Jennifer Perkins (Austin, TX United States)
Sometimes I feel like Pad was written just for me. The pictures and projects speak to me in a way that not many other books do. The clutter, the kitsch, the leopard skin - I love and want it all! I have taken so much inspiration from this book in my own kooky South Austin home, just pick up a copy of Kitschy Crafts: A Celebration of Overlooked 20th-Century Crafts to see the pictures to prove it. People either love this style of decorating or despise it, I am one of those people that love it just a little too much. People have told me it looks like a thrift store threw up inside my house, but that is exactly what I and the other home owners on the pages of PAD love about it. The book is like a bible for those of us who cringe when we hear the words less is more and for those who never met a flea market that they didn't like. I bought copies of PAD to give to several of my friends for Christmas so that they could see it was not just me who loved this style of decorating.
While eclectic interiors is my second passion, crafting is my first. PAD is chocked full of projects like how to make a furry entertainment center, swag lights out of birdcages and my personal favorite that I have made many of times gift boxes out of old vinyl album covers. Crafts and Kitsch is like pure heaven for me.
Did I mention that Matt Maranian is a heck of a nice guy? He was a guest on Craft Lab with me and I was a bit star struck being such a huge fan of PAD. He taught me how to saw bamboo for coffee tables and make flaming cocktail garnishes, both featured in his equally fantastical book Pad Parties: The Guide to Ultra-Entertaining. The Eyeglasses Frame Project was one of the inspirations behind the Specs Appeal project in The Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girl's Guide to Handmade Jewelry.
PAD is a tack-a-licious wonder of literary goodness that no self respecting crafter, thrifter or lover of the kitsch should be without.
The Authoritative Guide to Oddball Opulence and Cool Kitsch! (Not for Conformists!) March 6, 2007
P. B. Reynolds (North Carolina)
It just goes without saying that not everyone will appreciate this book the way its adherents do. But for those of us who "get it", "Pad" is an invaluable resource full of offbeat style, sumptuous photos, and (believe it or not), some generally sound decorating advice, including simple instructions on how to maximize mood through light placement, partitions, and furniture.
Equally indespensible to enthusiasts of cocktail culture are chapters detailing the do's and don'ts of hosting the perfect bash, pad style. Drink recipes, glassware guides, and even a chapter on must-buy mood music from the space-age and exotica genres help to make this book the be-all and end-all not just for design inspiration seekers, but for anyone who has even the most passing interest in the most Epicurian of lifestyles; that of the stylish, worldly bachelor (or bachelorette!).
From the Polynesian influenced and the ultra-modern, to the just plain wacky, "Pad" delivers quite possibly the best window yet into the sorely underappreciated artform of cool.
In order to have bad taste, you must first have very good taste. July 6, 2005
Anastasia M. Heonis
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
If you can't name who said this or if this quote doesn't ring true for you, then this is not the book for you. If you like for magazines and books to dictate to you how you should decorate and you rely on over priced interior decorators to tell you what is "in" and what is "out"; then once again this is not the book for you.
If you like over the top decor, wild and groovy pads, and truly outrageous ideas then this might be the book for you. If you hate white and beige and instead long for jewel toned walls in ruby and sapphire or if your hankering for kitchen accesories steers clear of the latest and greatest and you want the retro styled toaster with that space age flair; then you should pick this book up. This book is for do it yourselfers who search flea markets for their next table or couch and who know that although the kitschy stuff you seek might be valuable to you, you should never pay too much for it!
This is not for the mild or the tame or the weak of heart. This is not for those who agonize over what cream to paint their walls. (And hey, if that style fits you then fine, it's just not for us.) This has become one of my bibles, a book full of inspirational ideas. You don't try to copy anything here, you just come here to be inspired. There are a few rooms I wasn't too keen about, but all the rest I really loved. And some rooms might not have suited my fancy, but I could usually find some element that appealed to me that I could bring into my own home. I've not tried any of the projects yet, but we do plan to incorporate some into our tiki room, the Vegas glam lounge or even the space room. Even if the projects may not be what you need, it gives you a starting point I believe to create your own projects.
Let's keep in mind that most interior decorators would die of shock walking into my house, but they don't live here, I do. I'm sure one look at my "electric voodoo kitchen" with it's electric swamp green walls and overload of crosses and Virgin Marys would send them running. (If you want to see it yourself, then check out Gothic Beauty Magazine Issue 17.) I love my Wonderland house built in 1961 and I see no reason to pay someone who doesn't understand my vision to come in and decorate for me.
You should decorate how you feel, and if the designs of what's out in today's magazines appeal to you, then that's great. As long as it's YOU. But this book is for those of us who want some spice in our decorating, for those of us who think pink flamingoes are art, for those of us who don't want to carefully tiptoe through their space but to LIVE in it full throttle. We don't take ourselves that seriously, we like to kick back with a drink and a good convesation, we live by our own ideals, not yours.
 save $$$ and go retro May 31, 2005
Red Wood (Omaha, NE.)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is great! I ran across it in a shop that sold some retro items, but the price was a bit high. When I found it here, I snagged it quick. If your "pad" has a retro motif, this guide is invaluable. Although much of the guide I have no use for whatsoever(it gets pretty far out), I found many of the ideas usefull, and cost-effective, as opposed to buying new items or getting ripped off at an antique store. A lot of these ideas are so unique, you would likely have to create them yourself, anyway.
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