White and Faded: Restoring Beauty in Your Home and Life by Janet Parrella-Van Den Berg

White and Faded: Restoring Beauty in Your Home and Life by Janet Parrella-Van Den Berg

Published September 2023 by Nelson, Thomas Inc. 

208 pages

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through TLC Book Tours, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary: 

The only thing more beautiful than home transformation is personal transformation. Bring new life into your home and your soul through the gorgeous photography, inspiring story, and creative design ideas from Janet Parrella-Van Den Berg, founder of popular UK brand White & Faded. Journey through these hope-filled pages, and discover the hidden beauty in your own home and life.

In White & Faded, Janet Parrella-Van Den Berg takes you on a stunning photographic tour through her restored English homes as she invites you into her personal journey of restoring her own sense of value and purpose—and reveals how you can do the same.

So what is White & Faded? As Janet explains, she loves white things as a culmination of all colors and a representation of new mercies. And she loves faded things, such as cast-aside furniture, as a reminder that even what is painful or imperfect can be repurposed to reveal hidden beauty. Janet gives insights into both the literal and metaphorical aspects of white and faded as she draws on her decades of experience to offer:

• Full-color photography of restored English country homes, including a 1767 Georgian rectory in Kent and a home originally built in 1500
• Practical restoration tips—from large-scale homes to smaller antiques
• Fresh decorative ideas you can adapt to your own style, home, and season of life
• Fun inspiration—from antique to modern—ideal for fans of HGTV and Magnolia Network
• Inspiration to incorporate a touch of seasonal charm throughout the year
• How to make white work with kids and pets
• Janet's own remarkable story of trauma, love, and rediscovered identity

How will you create a place in your life where you feel loved, find healing, and discover new treasures? Sometimes seeing the past through new eyes gives hope for the future—and looking ahead can be a beautiful way to come home.

My Thoughts: 

I've been working with TLC Book Tours for a decade, perhaps, and still there are glitches. I received this book for what I understood to be an Instagram post. But they didn't know I had an Instagram so were surprised when I didn't post here on my designated day. So this book is getting both. Here's what I had to say on Instagram: 

I have always dreamed of an all-white house and Leo me some chippy, worn, well-loved furniture [as, by now, all of you know] so I was excited to receive White and Faded through TLC Book Tours. Even my husband was impressed - wish I had had it years ago when I was trying to convince him to go all white! The photography is beautiful and the way Janet Parrella-Van den Berg ties the choices she's made in her home to the events of her life is lovely.

Seriously, this book was sitting on my (not white) coffee table and The Big Guy picked it up and browsed through it, as he will with any of the books I have sitting around. I expected some comment about how impractical all-white is, or how he could never live without color. Instead, he remarked on how pretty the rooms were, how calming it felt. If I would have had this book twenty years ago, would my house look entirely different? Maybe. Maybe not. 

But with my daughter finally getting her things out of our basement, we will finally be able to make that space our own. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be able to use this book to create a bright, calm, clean space like the ones in this book, a space for which my heart has been aching for decades. For that, I'll be forever grateful to Parrella-Van Den Berg for showing my husband that all-white doesn't have to mean boring or impractical.