Mary Emmerling's Quick Decorating: Fast and Easy Projects for Every Room of the House (American Country Series)

Most Americans are pack rats, and Mary Emmerling seems to be no exception, but she knows how to make it look chic. Emmerling's specialty is a quintessential American country look: light fabrics, Western knickknacks, Navajo rugs, sunflowers, seashells, and gingham. The great thing about Emmerling's style is that it's flexible--when summer comes, you change the damask drapes to canvas tab curtains, put out some new pillows with mattress-ticking stripes, and--voilà!--you've got the beach cottage look. Every possession becomes decorating fodder: you can use nice, old chairs as end tables, house your videos and CDs in wicker baskets, or keep your spices in a test-tube rack. The division of the book into decorating periods of 5, 15, and 30 minutes (as well as "1 Hour to an Afternoon") is a bit odd and arbitrary, but the ideas are interesting and the look is great, especially for people with a lot of stuff.