The Winner...and the Book Thing Bonanza

The winner of the I Coloniali soap is Julie, aka Kitchenography! This worked out perfectly, since she and I were getting together to make a trip to the Book Thing. She really scored there, too. She found a biography of Diana Vreeland, with a photo of the famous red room on the back cover. How I managed to miss that is beyond me. I think that I've convinced her to let me read it when she's finished. I did get one very interesting book... it's called Elements of Interior Decoration, by Sherill Whiton, the first director of the New York School of Interior Design. This is the second printing of this book, originally published in 1937. There have been at three more printings and revisions of this book and the title has changed slightly. Here's some information about the fifth and current printing.

Alumni of the School include Mariette Himes Gomez; Mica Ertegun and best-selling author and designer Alexandra Stoddard among others. The school also publishes design and other books, including Albert Hadley: Drawings and the Design Process.
One of the charming features of the book is a page right at the beginning which has 16 small swatches of "typical background colours", ranging from French Gray to Cucumber. The book is illustrated by hundreds of line drawings, as well as loads of black and white photographs. I think that it will be a hugely useful reference book. Another good day at the Book Thing!