Erin T. Gates is a Boston-based interior designer, blogger, and curator of all things stylish. She began her blog, Elements of Style, in 2007 and formed her own design company, Erin Gates Design, shortly thereafter. Her work and writing have been featured in publications, such as O, The Oprah Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, House Beautiful, Boston Magazine, Inside Weddings, and Better Homes and Gardens.

Erin T. Gates

Elements of Style (published by Simon&Schuster) is a full-color, fully illustrated book packed with honest advice, inspiration, ideas, and lessons learned about designing a home that reflects your personality and style. Elements of Style is a uniquely personal and practical decorating guide that shows how designing a home can be an outlet of personal expression and an exercise in self-discovery.

Elements of Style -designing a Home & a Life

Drawing on her ten years of experience in the interior design industry, Erin combines honest design advice and gorgeous professional photographs and illustrations with personal essays about the lessons she has learned while designing her own home and her own life—the first being: none of our homes or lives is perfect.

Elements of Style -designing a Home & a Life

Like a funny best friend, she reveals the disasters she confronted in her own kitchen renovation, her struggles with anorexia, her epic fight with her husband over a Lucite table, and her secrets for starting a successful blog. Organized by rooms in the house, Elements of Style invites readers into Erin’s own home as well as homes she has designed for clients.

Elements of Style -designing a Home & a Life

Fresh, modern, and colorful, it is brimming glamour and style as well as advice on practical matters from choosing kitchen counter materials to dressing a bed with pillows, picking a sofa, and decorating a nursery without cartoon characters.

Elements of Style -designing a Home & a Life

You’ll also find a charming foreword by Erin’s husband, Andrew, and an extensive Resource and Shopping Guide that provides an indispensable a roadmap for anyone embarking on their first serious home decorating adventure. With Erin’s help, you can finally make your house your home.

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